Parachutes are an important piece of drag racing safety gear. You don’t buy any random parachute, bolt it up to your vehicle, and hope for the best. In this article, we’re going to cover what you need to know when it comes to buying a parachute for your vehicle, and what to expect when you deploy it for the first time.

Since Project Red Dragon is dancing on the very edge of the 150 mph requirement for a parachute, it was time to add one before we really turned the car up. We decided that a Simpson parachute would be our brand of choice. Adam Woodmancy from Quarter Max Racing gave us our parachute education and helped us pick the right one for our application.

Now that our turbocharged Pontiac is ready to punch through the 150 mph barrier, it was time to add a parachute to slow the car down.

Drag Racing Parachute 101

Before we jump into the technical side of selecting a parachute, let’s cover the basics of what makes up a parachute. A parachute is a relatively simple device, but there are several different parts to each unit, and different types of parachutes available. The NHRA requires a single parachute when you’re going 150 mph to 199 mph in the quarter mile. Once you cross the 200 mph threshold in the quarter mile, you’ll need two parachutes.

The most basic and common style of parachute is the pilot spring style. There’s a spring inside the pilot that pops the pilot and parachute out of the pack when the cable is pulled. Once the parachute catches enough wind, it will blossom and start to slow the car down. These are the most economical style of parachutes, but they’re also the slowest to deploy.

A spring canister launcher uses a large spring to launch the pilot and parachute out of the pack. This provides a quicker deployment of the parachute behind the vehicle. This style of parachute is more expensive than the pilot spring and requires special tools to wind up the spring when you pack the parachute.

The air launcher style of parachute uses a CO2 system to launch the pilot and parachute out of the pack. These parachutes are the quickest to deploy and blossom. The drawback to this style of parachute is the overall length requirement needed for it to work, and it can be more complicated to install and expensive – particularly if you don’t already have a CO2 system on board.

Selecting And Mounting Your Parachute for Drag Racing

Congratulations, you’re going fast enough to need a parachute, but do you know which one to select? Parachutes are sized for an application based on the weight of the vehicle and how fast it will be traveling at the top end of the track. You’ll need to have this information ready when you reach out to a company to purchase a parachute. The team at Simpson recommended, based on Project Red Dragon’s speed and weight, the Skyjaker parachute as the correct product for our application.

Selecting the right parachute isn’t super complex, it’s just a matter of making sure the weight and speed are taken into account. Where you’re going to mount the parachute takes a little more thought and is just as important. Mounting a parachute in the wrong spot will make it harder to control the car when it’s deployed, or could impact how quickly the parachute is deployed.

We used a parachute mount from Rock Solid Motorsports for our Trans Am. This mount is designed to work specifically with the Trans Am, so it’s already spaced off the car correctly and is at the right angle and height.

“The vertical height you mount the parachute at on the back of the vehicle is important. A general rule of thumb for the mounting height is that you want the parachute as close to the vehicle’s center of gravity as possible, which is generally close to the camshaft centerline on a traditional V8-powered car. If you mount the parachute too high, when the chute blossoms, it will want to lift the rear of the car up, which can cause problems in a hurry. If mounted too low, the chute can be deprived of air and fail to blossom properly. It can also inadvertently get tangled up in the wheelie bars. Pilot spring chutes are especially susceptible to this since they rely on air flow to deploy the pilot chute, which in turn pulls the primary chute out of the pack,” Woodmancy explains.

You’ll also want to pay attention to the angle you mount the parachute at. Take a walk through the staging lanes at any race, and you’ll quickly notice that each vehicle’s parachute is mounted at a specific angle. This isn’t for aesthetics, this is an important part of the installation process.

“We generally recommend mounting the parachute at a 35- to 45-degree upward angle. This will ensure as the chute deploys, it will be exposed to the maximum amount of air coming off the back of the car, ensure the chut blossoms fully and works at maximum efficiency,” Woodmancy says.

Another part of the mounting process that needs to be accounted for is where the parachute is positioned front to back on the rear of the vehicle. This becomes very important on vehicles that have rear spoilers. Woodmancy notes the back of the parachute should expand a minimum of five inches past the back of the spoiler to ensure there is no interference with the pack opening correctly.

Dumping The Laundry

Most racers are going to be deploying their first parachute via a handle mechanism. Where you mount the parachute handle is just as important as where you mount the parachute itself. You should treat this handle like it’s your lifeline, so it needs to be in a spot that’s easy to reach in case you need to pull the parachute in a hurry.

“The most overlooked part of the chute deployment, in my opinion, is the mounting of the parachute handle itself. Your parachute handle needs to be in a location that’s easy to reach. That way, it becomes muscle memory to get to and is easy to throw. It’s one thing to be in jeans and a T-shirt, sitting in a car pretending to go through the motions in your shop. However, it’s quite different when you are suited and strapped in tight with your helmet on, flying down the track. The last thing you want is to be distracted and fumbling for your chute handle instead of focusing on what’s ahead. That’s why the handle must be in a location that’s simple to reach without any bad angles,” Woodmancy states.

The Rock Solid Motorsports parachute handle mount we used puts the handle within reach. It’s easy to move your hand from the shifter to grab the parachute handle at any point during a run in this position.

At just 150 mph, a single parachute will pull upwards of 1.5 G’s when it hits, so you need to be ready for that shock. Since a parachute doesn’t begin to slow a vehicle down until it’s fully blossomed, you’ll want to hit the handle before the finish line. The goal is to “drive into the chute” so it will deploy when you’re at max speed. Remember, the parachute is designed to help slow you down and keep you stable, so you’ll also need to use the brakes.

Getting a feel for what the car is going to do when you pull the parachute will take time and experience. The more you do it, the better you’ll be able to tell what the vehicle is doing and if there’s a problem.

“Trust that feeling in the seat and remember the parachute is trying to do its job, sometimes it just needs a soft touch to get through the times when things aren’t picture perfect. For those who don’t have a ton of experience with using a parachute, I feel there is no substitute for awareness. People get complacent, you make the same run over and over again, and it becomes routine. I tell new drivers that I work with that the most dangerous time on a racetrack is the moment you lose respect for the machine and become complacent,” Woodmancy explains.

You don’t need to feel intimidated by the process of buying or using a parachute. Just like so many areas of racing, it takes some research, talking to the right people, and experience to become a pro at pulling a parachute.