These heavy utility vehicles are ready to roll coal.
When you look at a massive semi truck riding around on the road it’s highly unlikely that the first thought that pops in your head is performance oriented. Rather, you might look at how large it is and become frightened, wonder what’s inside the trailer, or just hope that traffic doesn’t get held up by the big hauler. However, for these truck lovers, the semi truck represents something far more exciting than simply transporting goods. That seemingly mythical enchantment of automotive greatness is called torque.
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As you might expect, those massive vehicles have more than enough torque to lay down some seriously high numbers at the dragstrip. Sure, they might not get to very high speeds because of their aerodynamics but at the end of the day, a semi trucks job is to regularly move tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of pounds of equipment on a very regular basis and stay reliable doing so. That’s exactly why semi truck drag racing popped up almost immediately after the introduction of these large utility vehicles.
After practice rounds, something that would be more than worthy of talking about on its own, it was time to load up the trucks with some trailers to see how they perform under load. Well your typical semi truck might be hauling around 80,000 pounds on the road, these trailers weigh 120,000 pounds each, or 140,000 pounds including the drive track. Many of these trucks are running 2500 to 3000 hp and more torque than any dedicated factory semi truck could even handle. That’s exactly why you see the bodies and frames of these trucks twisting upward into a wheelie upon acceleration. It might not look like the trucks are going fast but on the inside you know the drivers are probably shaking in their boots. Overall it’s insane that these semi trucks are able to hit the speeds that they do and it really is a testament to the greatness of engineering especially when you put it in the hands of a racing enthusiast.