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There must come a day in every home owner's life when the fence is mended, the deck is built, the drywall's up and there's just no chore left on the list that requires a power tool. While some may fear that day, there are a group of people who weren't discouraged by their power tools' retirement. In fact, they saw it as an opportunity to reinvent their angle grinders, belt sanders, circular saws and chain saws as purpose built tools of speed. The goal was to win their class at the 2006 Silverline Power Tool Drag Race. While the 2006 event has come and gone, we've just learned its popularity has locked in a return for 2007. This year's race will happen on Sunday, August 5th at the Haynes International Motor Museum in the UK.
The rules for Power Tool Drag Racing are pretty simple. Take a power tool, turn it into something resembling a drag racer, and set it off down a 75-foot long track against an opponent. Of course, there are classes of competition, which most easily break down into Ridden and Un-ridden classes. Just like they sound, the Ridden class includes vehicles big enough to carry a driver that are still powered by power tools. The Un-ridden class, meanwhile, features smaller vehicles that ride down a narrow track on their own. There are individual sub-classes, as well, which include a Modified class that allows almost any design and drivetrain as long as it doesn't come from a remote-controlled car, and the Super Stock class that basically takes off-the-shelf power tools and races them against each other.
We've got a
gallery full of some entrants from last year, including the Chainsaw Dragster (shown above) from the Ridden Class that's powered by eight chainsaws (!), as well as the fastest entry from last year, a custom built racer powered by what appears to be a pair of angle grinders or some other small power tool.
[Source: Silverline Power Tools]
