turbonique rocket kart is for sale

I see your still surfing ebay for another Turbonique drag axle????

 

I wondered if he was still alive. Before the turbonique karts, he had a kart powered by four west bends. Wonder if any of his karts are still around?

 

This is the first I had heard about any of his other karts
Got any more info
Brian

 

I'm gonna buy that thing, put a balsa body on it and enter a soap-box derby...

 

There have been many wild and strange experiments throughout karting’s history. Perhaps the wildest of all were the rocket powered karts of the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s.



Would you believe that in the mid-1960’s the rocket-powered kart pictured above turned the quarter mile at over 150 mph? 0 to 150 in 7.3 seconds! That was Jack McClure with his modified 1963 Rupp Dart Kart powered by a pair of Turbonique T-16 rocket motors.

These motors, each producing 300 lbs of thrust, used a special kind of monopropellant which the company dubbed "Thermolene" (actually N-Propyl Nitrate). These engines powered the little kart to faster times than rail dragsters of its day.

These engines, however, were also very dangerous and killed many users because under certain conditions they could explode like bombs. Those disasters resulted in the Turbonique factory closing and its owner landing in jail.

 

I am a chemist and can get the raw materials to produce the fuel for one of these. If one of our HAMB members is ballsy enough to buy and run it, I can make the fuel. PM me if anybody needs it.

 

Here is something interesting about the turbonique kart from Tommy Ivo's point of view
refering to a well known publicity picture
http://www.the-rocketman.com/myth.html

 

Jack did run 215 at one point in a kart. Talk about NUTS . Or you could say BALLS!!!

 

The 4 engine drag kart was a Kendick and had 4 Mac 100's on it , they said it turned 12,s in the 1/4
It was recently found and restored .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJsAnV3FJLE
Brian

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That kart is so cool, but the one I was talking about was a dart kart, I think, that had 2 west bends on each side. I'll try to find the mag with the story in it.

 

The book ''Karting'' by Leroi Smith has a pic of the kindick kart without engines on the floor of a kart shop.

 

Bring it out to El Mirage dry lake. Theres plenty of nutters who would drive it without blinking.

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no I think NUTS is more the right word, however in this context they could be used together. When these things first came out I couldn,t beleive it! They were just amazing, you could just hang one your 53 plymouth and turn top elimilator [almost.]

 

Captain Jack McClure.
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[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]"The 36 year old Florida deep sea fishing boat captain had several years experience running various exotic go-karts, but never anything like this before. With 1000 pounds of thrust, Captain Jack would goose his little kart for 2 or 3 seconds and squirt down the track, 1-1/2'' off the ground, pulling 3G's, and stopping the timers with 6.3 et's at around 215 mph!"


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I didn't read all the posts, sorry, It was Jack McClure, right? I saw him run back in '65 at Lebanon Valley New York. He had problems with it burning through the fuel lines and cutting off the fuel to the engine. (lucky the damn thing didn't explode) Point is, he was making half track passes because the engine kept quitting, and was still running 180+ on that! I loved it!

 

We found one of these in a friends barn yesterday. Is been in there for 40+ years

 

I've been trying to post this but here goes again!!!
We found one of these in a friends garage yesterday!

 

Cool. Is it complete? What are you going to do with it?

 

I saw one run @ the old freeway dradstrip (Gay Ponitiac) maybe 1965 or so.Also I seem to remember a fatality associated with one of the drags trip exhibitions

 

I have a Karting mag buried in the "saving" corner of the attic with an article on the four engine kart, don't know how the chains held up.. Most places he went wanted a show so no real runs but outta shape exhibitions...If I remember right he said if the clutches hooked good he could smoke the tires and do a wheelie...I was young enough to be jealous, hell I'm old enough to still be jealous!!!

 

There were 2 4 engine drag karts Kendick Special that ran 4 McCulloch 100 engines

The second being Captain Jack McClure kart that ran 4 820 Westbend engines .