After 20 Years of Drag-and-Drive History, Nitrous Oxide Systems Continues to Remain a Popular Power-Adder Choice
Nitrous Oxide has been a part of the racing and street car landscape for nearly a half-a-century, and is one of the cheapest and easiest power adders to add to a vehicle.
Nitrous can also lay claim to the first power-adder to capture an overall drag-and-drive event title, as the first Hot Rod Drag Week was won by Carl Scott in a nitrous-fed Chevy II.
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Although nitrous has a lot of history in the racing market, nitrous gained a lot of attention during World War II, used as a performance enhancement to help airplanes in speed and altitude. When jet propulsion gained traction after the war, nitrous wasn’t used as much.
Although several racers and teams played with nitrous as a power-adder before the late 1970s, it was two men that perfected the use of it, and created the Nitrous Oxide Systems (NOS) company. Although they are not the lone nitrous system in the business, NOS can lay claim to more history and record runs before the turn of the century.
The NOS brand played into the creation of the popular of the Pro Modified class in the 1980s, and NOS systems were used on the first 6-second and 200 mph quarter-mile passes. It became common to see NOS plate and fogger systems in several heads-up classes, as well as hundreds of street and strip cars, as the drag-and-drive movement ‘unofficially’ began.
As more and more EFI-equipped rides were produced, NOS made the move to answer the call for these rides to add a nitrous system. NOS also continued to add more products to allow for easier and more consistent use of nitrous systems, including the Launcher and Pressure On Demand (POD) nitrous controllers.
With drag-and-drive events, including Sick the Magazine’s events, continuing to see quicker and faster vehicles, there are still plenty of nitrous-assisted vehicles making their mark in several classes.
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Written by Derek Putnam. Photos courtesy of Sick the Magazine and Holley.
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