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Looking for the PDF Edition? The PDF of the Print Edition can now be read by clicking the "Print Editon" button at the top of the screen. Marty Merillat's Drag Racer Stands Up On Its Rear Wheels
His highlymodified Ford Mustang drag racer can cover a quarter mile from a standing start in about 8.8 seconds at more than 150 miles an hour. It has so much power, it can stand up on its back bumper. In fact, Merillat has entered the car in wheel stand competitions and picked up two secondplace awards. Once, he was second to a car that could flip over on its roof. At the October event at a drag strip in Norwalk, Merillat said, "Both back tires were off (the ground) by a foot. I was straight up on the parachute; it actually bent the parachute mount." Merillat's car is so fast, there's a parachute on the back to slow it down at the end of a run. Of course, what goes up, must come down. Merillat's advice for a soft landing is, "Do not lift (the throttle). Keep it on the floor. If you lift, it's going to hurt. "One time, I had to lift. It was going towards the wall, and I had to lift or it was going to land on the wall. So it came down, and came down hard."
"It was bad," Merillat said. But, he said, that's only once in about 30 wheelies, and he enjoys doing them. He discovered the car's ability to wheel stand by accident. He was experimenting with his rear suspension. "I thought I had it under control halfway through the year. I changed a couple things, and by the end of the year, I couldn't keep the front end down." When not in wheelie competition, he mounts wheelie bars, a special, extra set of small wheels behind the rear wheels to keep the front end on the ground. Interest In Cars Merillat, a 1996 AHS grad, got interested in cars as a kid. By age nine, he had an all-terrain vehicle and was working on it in his grandfather's shop. He had another modified car, but when he got his current racer in 2000, "that's when I decided I'm out to have fun." The sanctioning body he races with requires cars in his class, "True Street," to be street legal, and able to drive 30 miles before racing, just to prove they can run on the street. But make no mistake, it's a true racer. Its engine is filled with high performance parts, and makes 600 to 700 horsepower before nitrous oxide, a power-adding gas, is injected. When the nitrous injection engages, it adds an additional 400 horsepower. The power passes through a special twospeed transmission to the rear axle, to oversized rear tires that required body modifications to fit. Merillat built the car himself, learning the science of going fast in the process. And it worked. In 2007, for a three-run average, his car was the fastest in its class in the nation. Merillat pays for his entire racing effort from his own pockets. To help financially support his racing hobby, Merillat builds cars for others in his shop at the new home he shares with wife Beth, and daughters Paige, 10, and Macie, seven. He uses what he's learned from own car, but said, "I'll never stop learning. Learning is as much fun as racing," he said. Speed Merillat's only racing interest is drag racing, where a contest is over in seconds. "I get bored watching anything else," he said. He said he enjoys the speed, and when the car leaves the starting line, with about 1,000 horsepower turning the rear wheels, "it's amazing. It's a feeling that can't be replaced." When will he stop racing? When it stops being fun? "It will never stop being fun. There's gotta be a day, but I don't know when it is right now," he said. Merillat said Beth and the girls support his racing hobby. In fact, Macie already has designs on her father's racer. "Macie thinks this car is going to be hers when she turns 16," he said. How does Dad feel about that? "No way," he says, but reconsiders. "We may tame it down a little." |
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