User:Hellheart/Drag race
A drag race is a contest in which two or more participants attempt to get a parachute as high as possible within 5 seconds of release. The most effective way to do this is to acheive very high speeds and then release the parachute - the burst of air from the speed should quickly propel it outward and upward, carrying the participant into the air. Because the parachute is dragged behind the participants at high speeds upon release, not unlike pair-a-sailors, the term "drag race" was coined in A.C. 1771 by Oscar Wilde.
Development[edit | edit source]
The concept of the drag race was allegedly developed by one of the Wright brothers in one of his early attempts at flight. It is a little-known fact that there were actually three Wright brothers - Oscar, Wilbur, and Heironymous. Heironymous believed that if a parachute was released horizontally at high speeds, the resulting drag would be sufficient to lift a person and, perhaps, a light vehicle.
In order to test his theory, Heironymous built an Ark and filled it with animals for ballast. This was to ensure that he would not fly up into the stratosphere. Unfortunately, the Ark got stranded on a mountain during an otherwise successful attempt at flight. Frustrated by this defeat, Heironymous designed a light propeller/bicycle based on Leonardo Da Vinci's drawings, with extensive modification. The lack of effective midair steering spurred the decision to not use ballast, lest another mountain stop him from glory.
Unfortunately, this decision proved to be *too* successful. Legends say he's still flying somewhere in the atmosphere, and is responsible for all the plane crashes that aren't caused by inane pilots, mechanical failures, crazy hijackers, poisonous fish, electrical failure, mechanical failure, tactical failure, sabbatical failure, cigarette fires, even crazier hijackers, head-on plane collisions, and girl-on-girl action.
Historical Usage[edit | edit source]
In an attempt to find their lost brother, the two remaining Wright brothers organized "races" among the populace. The idea was to strand so many people in the upper atmosphere that the clump became visible from ground level. In order to retreive their brother when he was found, they continued to search for other methods of flying. Their first officially successful flight was actually the third successful attempt; the previous two were ruined because the sheer number of racers floating upwards limited sight distance drastically, preventing the brothers from landing anywhere other than on top of the Ark (which could be seen for hundreds of miles). This became such an important landing area that it was eventually decimated from sheer use, wiping away all evidence of the Ark, baffling biblical historians.
When flight began to see extensive use by the military, drag racing was declared illegal, and those found practicing it were shot. This consequence was accidental, since it's generally a bad idea to be a squishy human floating in the middle of an intense dogfight, but helped to dissuade people from the practice. Citing increased health concerns and sick of being forced underground (where it is terribly hard to drag race), the DRAG - Drag Racing and Aeronautics Gala, considered the foremost authority on drag racing (but not aeronautics or galas), introduced the concept of using heavy vehicles in order to prevent liftoff. Since this fit the law's definition of drag racing ("any act in which pedestrians get in our fucking way"), it was in fact still illegal, but this specific use was not prosecuted at the time. The lines to the parachutes were made shorter, and the parachutes made smaller, to ensure that liftoff was not acheived. That trend continues to this day.
England survived the Nazi attacks largely by organizing old-fashioned drag races involving hundreds or thousands of people when a bombing run was imminent. Each participant carried a fairly heavy, hard object, in extreme cases a Land Mime (modified to work in midair). The resulting cloud of people was devastating to planes attempting to fly through, as an impact with anything solid and fairly heavy at high speeds is likely to screw something up.
Modern Usage[edit | edit source]
The government began prosecuting unorganized drag racing in A.C. -485 (B.C. 4210.42) when the parachutes became so short that little height could be acheived, and so racers began to compete using speed, using the parachutes to slow down. Drag racing is popular among younger people, who attempt to reduce friction by installing large vibrating objects that "thump," which propel the car into the air if sufficiently powerful. Some of these racers, attempting to reduce wind resistance and ensure they wouldn't remain in the air after a thump, remove the parachutes entirely (thus the use of the term "drag" for wind resistance).