Why is Five -Time Winston NHRA Top Fuel Champion Joe Amato Dragging RVs?

by Don Magary, Editor

It's a cloudy, raining spring day at the Seattle International Speedway, and five-time Winston NHRA Top Fuel champion Joe Amato revs the engine and waits in anticipation as the lights drop through it's series. Red, yellow, and when the final light flashes green, Amato jams his experienced foot to the floor and the 2000 Georgie Boy Landau 33-foot motorhome leaps forward in its race against the clock. Amato, who holds the quickest time ever recorded in NHRA history with a 4.523 second run, could only muster 23.441 in the quarter mile today, due in part to the wet track.

Wait a minute . . . why is the the winningest driver in Top Fuel history running RVs down the quarter mile track in Seattle instead of his 6,000-horsepower Murf McKinney dragster?

Good question. The answer is that Tenneco Automotive is Amato's top sponsor and when Tenneco invited Amato to participate in introducing a new Walker Mega Flow RV Exhaust system to the RV industry, Amato was happy to accommodate.

It was all quite amazing seeing motorhomes and tow vehicles perform where normally only top notch high performance race cars traditionally strut their stuff. The results were amazing as well.

Part of Tenneco's claim for the new Walker Mega Flow RV Exhaust is that the system promotes better responsiveness and better fuel economy than the exhaust systems delivered on OEM manufacturers. And who better to build an RV exhaust system than Tenneco Automotive, the world's largest producer of ride control and exhaust management products. The company produces three out of every ten mufflers sold in the worldwide aftermarket.

This test was originally designed so there were two Georgie Boy motorhomes on the Workhorse P-30A chassis, two Kenworth Atlantic Star motor-home/tow vehicles towing matching Teton Denver Grand fifth-wheels, and two Ford F150 pickups towing Nash 22-foot travel trailers. In each vehicle set, one was equipped as delivered from the manufacturer and one was retrofitted with Monroe RV shocks and the Walker Mega Flow RV Exhaust system. However, with wet track conditions that day Amato determined that for safety reasons, the two vehicles shouldn't have the trailers attached out of consideration for the RV manufacturers that had donated new units for this demonstration. So the test went as planned with this exception, and in each case the modified vehicles out performed the stock vehicles. (See Chart I).

Amato drove each vehicle twice through the quarter mile at the NHRA track in Seattle. The better of the two-elapse times was used to quantify the improved performance. Fuel economy was quantified via a 346-mile, two-day ride and drive. continued