Original subtitles

Do not try any of the experiments

You are about to see at home.

You heard him. Don't do it.

On this turbocharged episode of "Mythbusters"...

...The whole team feels the need for speed in an indycar special.

Holy crap!

First up, it's a sporting-superstar showdown...

Show you how we do it in the olympics.

...In a short-course sprint that'll knock your socks off.

Go!

Can man beat car?

That was close.

Then, there's some sensational suction...

Whoa! Look at that.

...As the guys see if a road-hugging race car

Really can mobilize a manhole cover.

You're getting faster.

Beautiful.

Meanwhile, kari, tory, and grant strip down...

Apparently, my intestines are measuring 101 degrees.

...Then suit up.

I'm about to drive an indycar for three hours! Whoo-hoo!

...To test out a race-day, weight-loss myth...

goodness gracious, that's fast.

...That pushes them all to the brink and beyond.

I am exhausted. I feel like I just got beat up.

Who are the Mythbusters?

Adam savage...

It's scientific!

...And jamie hyneman.

Quack, damn you.

Between them, more than 30 years of special-effects experience.

Together with kari byron...

Golden dragon!

...Tory belleci...

Why are we doing this?

...And grant imahara.

Somebody order an explosion?

They don't just tell the myths.

Aw!

They put them to the test.

-- Captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.com

Captions paid for by discovery communications

First out of the blocks is a myth

That pits hamstrings against horsepower.

What are you doing?

Research.

Only you could call playing around with toys research.

[ tires squeal ] so, what's up first?

First up, we've got at doozy.

There is a myth that a man can actually outrun an indycar.

I'm sorry.

I don't know any dudes that can run 220 miles an hour.

He doesn't have to because this race takes place

Over only a distance of 30 feet.

Ah. Well, that's different.

That's all about the physics of it --

Traction, mass, that kind of thing.

That might just work.

You feel like running?

Maybe after lunch.

Good idea.

The incredibly indy 500 is renowned for its rolling starts.

One reason for this "go, go, go" game plan

Is that indycars struggle to get a grip from a standing start.

But is their traction really so terrible

That in a 30-foot, man-versus-car race-off,

It's the human who'd take the checkered flag?

Well, what better place to test it

Than america's mecca of motorsports?

We've been lucky enough,

In the course of doing this show,

To film at some pretty iconic locations.

We got to escape from alcatraz.

Welcome to the rock.

We got to throw pennies off the roof

Of the empire state building.

Wow.

And we looked for jimmy hoffa

On the 50-yard line of the meadowlands.

But today, today, I am standing on the starting line

Of the most famous track in racing,

The indianapolis motor speedway,

Known, because of this strip I'm standing on, as the brickyard.

These bricks are some of the 32 million

Used to build the original, 2 1/2-mile-long track

Back in 1909.

The speedway's seen speed records smashed

And a lot of cars trashed in its 100-year history.

But safe to say it's never seen anything quite like this.

Well, our track is all set up.

You ready for some sprinting, hoosier?

I'm good to go. All we need is a car and a drive.

I'm not psychic, but I believe one is showing up posthaste.

Hey, everybody.

Hey, ryan. How's it going? Good.

Ryan briscoe's a bit of a legend around here,

Not just for his driving, but for walking away

From this calamitous crash back in 2005.

Today, he's offered to coach adam

On how to get off to a flying start.

You've got a lot of horsepower here,

And the key is really gonna be, you know,

Getting that feeling with the clutch

And not stalling it 'cause it's got a very touchy clutch.

So, you're gonna have lots of rpm.

And then, just find that bite point.

Get those tires spinning, and off you go.

With a top speed of over 240 miles per hour,

These are the fastest race cars in the world,

And adam's pretty quick to get his butt behind the wheel.

All right, I'm gonna start it up.

Wow. I feel a rumble in my soul.

"rumble" is right because this car goes

From zero to 100 in three seconds flat.

Let's see how adam handles the horses.

Well, that was a little spotty.

I'm gonna give it another few tries.

Any minute now, I'll be ready for hyneman.

After four practice starts,

Adam's convinced he was born to burn rubber.

So, cue test number one --

700 horsepower versus one hopeful hyneman.

You wouldn't think it would be much of a contest,

But here's the thing.

I weigh a little over a tenth as much as that car does.

So, I might just be a little quicker getting off the line.

The feeling trackside is it's gonna be close, so let's see.

Are you ready? Start your engines.

go!

Sure enough, there's barely the width of a moustache

Between them.

I don't know. It was a close finish.

That was close!

The high-speed shows adam flashing through for a win

In the last fraction of a second.

It's so close there's no question

This calls for a do-over.

Start your engines.

Go!

To the naked eye, it's another close call,

But the high-speed shows adam has increased his edge.

How'd that go?

You were ahead of me by about three feet that time.

Really? Yeah.

It's amazing to watch it because I'm leading you

Right up until about I'm ready to cross the finish line.

And then, there you are, and you're gone.

I did spin out a bunch at the starting line.

You want to go one more time? Yeah.

This is jamie's last chance to confirm the myth

And boost the morale of pedestrians everywhere.

But it's not third time's a charm.

I think I got my ass kicked.

This time, adam wins out by way more than a nose.

I thought I did pretty well.

A couple of those runs, I was neck-and-neck with the car.

But I'm just wearing street clothes,

And maybe if we put somebody in proper gear,

And maybe if that person happened to be

A little younger than me, a.K.A. Adam,

He might have a fighting chance.

Yep.

Just down the track,

We've got sprint-king savage up against hair-trigger hyneman.

He's no usain bolt,

But the finish of this race is certified gold.

Next up is a "lose weight real fast" myth

That should get anyone's motor racing.

Okay, indycar special. What have we got?

All right.

This one sounds a little fishy, but here it goes.

It's that, during the course of a race,

An indycar driver can lose 10 pounds.

Seriously? 10 whole pounds?

That's what they say.

Wait a minute.

Does this mean we're gonna be driving race cars

To test this myth? I hope so.

I'm gonna go suit up.

Excited much?

If this diet dilemma is true, it's one of the most exciting

And potentially perilous ways ever to slim down in a hurry.

The weight these drivers supposedly shed

Is due to extreme exertion and plenty of perspiration.

But 10 pounds is more than most of us

Could hope to lose in a month.

All right. I'm ready to race.

Since this is about sweat, maybe we should narrow it down first

And find out how much water weight you would lose

In three hours from just heat alone.

That's a good idea.

That way, we could get a baseline before we hit the road

And see if driving itself causes you to lose

More or less weight than that.

Exactly. Kari, know any good spas?

Well, that's a stupid question.

Better question is where did you have a race suit?

I'm always prepared.

The green flag drops on the control test,

So for now, tory can leave the race suit behind.

Down here, the dress code is -- well, let's call it relaxed.

Now, we do a lot of crazy things on "Mythbusters,"

And most of them aren't that pleasant.

But finally, we're doing an experiment

Where it sounds like it's not gonna be so bad.

Think again because a sauna gets up to 120 degrees,

Which is the same temperature as the inside of an indy cockpit,

And we're gonna be in there for three hours,

Which is the same length of time as a full race.

In fact, things just might turn unpleasant enough

For some medical monitoring.

And we've got that stitched up.

Dr. Clifford sewell will be monitoring us.

We have thermometers that we've swallowed...

For science.

...Ingestible thermometers that are wireless.

He can take our core temperature

And make sure that everything's okay.

well, that was a big one.

They'll weigh themselves now,

Then again when the three-hour furnace has finished.

Tory's the first to proclaim his poundage to the public.

Okay, so, I weight 176.

As for kari's gross tonnage...

I'll write it down.

Grant strains the scales up to...

137?

Now all that's required is a sizable snooze in the sauna.

But how much of their mass will go missing?

Whew! Three hours of this?

this is hot!

Now, normally, when you're in a sauna, it's very steamy.

But as you can see, we're going with the dry sauna.

The reason why is if there's too much moisture in the air,

It's too saturated.

When we sweat, our sweat won't evaporate,

Which means we won't be losing weight from losing the moisture.

This is a common method for people to shed

Some water weight really quickly.

Models, jockeys, fighters, they all do this kind of thing.

So, I mean, I think it's a possibility.

10 pounds is quite a lot.

I'm not looking forward to it.

Hey, you guys come to the sauna often?

Aah!

Ew! Really?

As the minutes and hours melt away,

The perspiration puddles and pools,

And it seems like each of our sweat hogs

Has his own odd response to heat stress.

For tory, it's all just a drive in the park...

You see, I'm pretending like I'm driving an indycar.

...While grant has his eye on the instruments.

Apparently, my intestines are measuring 101 degrees.

According to science, grant's hot.

But with just minutes of hot-house hardship

Left to endure,

The guys decide they can brazen it out.

Thank god we are done with the experiment.

We've been in here for three hours.

Now it's time to go out and weigh ourselves

And see if we lost weight.

It's a good thing 'cause I was about to lose the towel.

I'm lightheaded.

All right, grant. You weighed 137 before the test.

Get on the scale and see how much weight you lost.

136.

All right. So, you lost a pound.

The news is no better for she who suffered most.

Looks like you lost one pound of weight.

That was just one pound? Yeah.

And for the man who did get in some driving practice...

Wow, I lost two pounds.

That's far from the 10 pounds the myth talks about,

So it's got to be more than heat.

It's got to also be exertion and stress.

Well, you know what that means.

I think we need to add driving to the mix.

Let's hit the showers. It's that way.

Sweet.

After the break...

Whoo-hoo!

...Tory tries to lose 10 fast pounds

Without hitting the wall...

My heart is racing a little bit faster now.

...While adam redlines

In the challenge of beating the indycar.

Oh, my god. It's so close!

That's crazy.

There's not much on four wheels

That could outrun a turbocharged indycar,

But one myth says a man could do just that

If the course was just 30 feet long.

And while vintage jamie ran out of steam...

I think I got my ass kicked.

...A slightly younger model might reverse the result...

Now it's my turn to run.

...With the help of an added spring at the start.

So, jamie was running from what I would call a standing start.

I'm going to use a little technology to help me,

A racer's set of chocks.

Now I'm ready.

Start your engines.

Go!

Ohh!

It's officially a photo finish,

And adam's the first to consult with the stewards.

Oh, my god. It's so close!

That's crazy.

He is literally beating me by a nose --

By, like, the five inches of the nose of the indycar.

Let's do it again!

Aah!

I don't think I won! But I was close!

Well, that's one way to put it.

The replay confirms

That this race was a frame-perfect dead heat.

Jamie, that was a tie.

Way to go.

You want to go one more time? Sure. Why not?

All right.

This will be adam's last run, and, boy, does he know it.

I want to win. I want to win so badly.

Go!

I think he smoked me on that one. Shoot!

It's exactly what happened to jamie with his runs.

Third time unlucky on those fast-fading, middle-aged legs.

That might be some of the most fun I've had

Testing a myth ever.

Yeah, those cars are great.

I'll tell you what I'm seeing.

When I'm running and you're driving,

We've got a shot at the beginning

That makes it look like I'm smoking the car.

I'm way faster off the line,

But 30 feet later, you're ahead of me.

Yeah, I saw the same thing.

I thought I was winning the race.

And then, there's a car, and it's gone.

I don't think we can call it based on these tests alone.

No. We're not done yet. No.

Grant, tory, and kari are sweating on a myth

That says an indycar driver

Can drop 10 whole pounds in body weight

During a three-hour road race.

But an experimental sweat-a-thon

Saw them shed just four pounds between them,

So it's time to shift up a gear.

All right, so, to properly test this,

We need to go to the source, which means we're also going

To the indianapolis motor speedway.

But there's a catch.

There's only one car, so only one of us can drive.

All right, I'll do it.

I'll take the bullet here. I'm willing to do this.

No, I think we should wrestle for it.

No, no, no.

Wait a minute.

Roshambo? It's the only fair way.

Yes!

I'm super-happy for you.

Let's do this! That felt good.

We decided to come here because we needed to step it up.

We need to find out if tory can ride around this track

And lose 10 pounds.

But first, we're gonna need a car.

And this is the car.

It's a dallara.

It weighs about 1,200 pounds, has 750 horsepower,

Is capable of driving at 210 miles per hour,

And can pull two to three g's.

Oh, yeah, and one more thing.

It costs about $1 million to put this car on the track.

And while tory gets some intensive driver's ed...

Don't be afraid to let out and gas at the same time.

You kind of want to go...

...Grant and kari get a first-hand account

Of the punishing pursuit

These pro drivers go through from ryan briscoe.

Each time I hit the brake pedal, it's like 150 pounds.

And I'll be doing that literally hundreds,

Maybe, you know, thousands of times in a race.

And the steering wheel is really heavy.

No power steering.

It's like pushing probably 40-pound to 50-pound weights

Every time I'm turning the wheel.

And that is, like, thousands and thousands of times

During the race.

Sounds like racing at indy

Amounts to a three-hour boot camp.

Couple that with the heat and the pulse-thumping terror

Of taking these 200-mile-an-hour turns --

Well, you can see how you might kick a few calories.

Was that so much fun?

It didn't suck.

There's just one piece of business

To tend to before the big race.

All right, so, the weigh-in -- 184 pounds.

All right. So, that's your before-race weight.

For this to be confirmed, after you're done,

That's got to say 174.

What are you waiting for? Go get in the car!

All right.

you got three whole hours.

Tick-tock.

There's a lot of pressure on me right now.

And I'm not gonna lie -- I'm a little nervous.

Who am I kidding?

I'm about to drive an indycar for three hours! Whoo-hoo!

All he has to do is stay on the track, go fast,

Pump some break-pedal iron, and perspire freely,

Which should be, well, no sweat.

I'm in the zone. Let's do this.

All right. Good luck. Thanks.

That looks like so much fun!

Now, here's why tory might lose 10 pounds.

He's covered head-to-toe in fire-retardant material,

Including a head sock.

Then, he's got his race uniform and his helmet.

He's gonna be hot,

And that means he gonna sweat in order to cool down.

And then, there's the exertion.

Even at these speeds,

This car generates a lot of downforce,

Which means the steering's gonna be really hard in every turn.

Finally, there's the stress.

See, most of this course, the walls are concrete.

You make one mistake,

If you have one lapse in judgment,

You're in the concrete,

And a $1 million car is destroyed,

Not to mention risking injury or death.

That's a lot to think about.

In fact, there's almost no end to the stresses and strains.

On the turns, tory's pulling as much as three g's,

And that means he feels like he's carrying

Three times his own weight.

My neck muscles are definitely sore

Trying to keep in position

As I'm going around those turns at high speeds.

My arms are getting sore.

I keep my foot slammed on the gas

Probably harder than I have to,

But the adrenaline is rushing so much

That I kind of forget that I'm doing it.

The adrenaline's pretty much worn off for grant and kari.

There's a limit to how long

You can watch someone else have the time of his life.

Whoo!

Whoo!

I wish I had a watch on.

Back on the track, tory's delight has turned to disquiet.

So, it's just started raining.

I don't have any rain tires on this car,

So the stress factor has just gone up

Because there is a very good chance

That I could go sliding into the wall.

My heart is racing a little bit faster now.

Tory's heart might be faster,

But his speed has dropped off in the drizzle.

For the last hour, his top speed is just over 120.

How was that?

Is that it? Three hours is up already?

It is.

That's it, man. You're done. oh, my god.

I am exhausted, and I feel sweaty as I could possibly be.

After three whole hours and with all that exertion,

Tory's just about swimming in sweat.

All right. You ready for the final weigh-in?

Yes. All right.

After three hours of driving,

I don't know if 10 pounds were lost.

181. I lost 3 pounds in three hours.

Dude, that's it?

That's nowhere near the 10 pounds the myth talks about.

The myth would seem to be just about dead in the water,

But maybe not.

The rain slowed tory down for almost an hour...

And no other cars on the track

Means less stress and less exertion.

And that's not the end of it.

Now, another factor, and perhaps the biggest one,

Is the temperature.

We're here at the indianapolis motor speedway,

But we're here in the off season.

During the indy 500, it wouldn't raining,

And it would be about 30 degrees warmer.

One thing they can't do is hang here till summer,

So it's time to warm up a plan "b"

And get this myth to the finish line.

Still to come, we find out if indycar suction...

Holy crap!

...Can literally rip up the road.

You're getting faster. 149.

Beautiful.

Now to tackle a myth that starts,

And might end, in the sewer.

I've got one. Okay, shoot.

You know, I've heard that at about 150 miles an hour,

When indycars are doing a street race,

Their aerodynamic effects are enough

To pull manhole covers right out of the manholes.

No way.

Dude, that is totally something we have to test.

I thought you'd like that.

When indycars take to the street,

It's standard practice to weld shut any manhole covers

In case the cars suck them right out of the ground.

That's because indycars are built to take full advantage

Of bernoulli's principle.

As the air underneath the car gets funneled faster,

It causes the air pressure to drop,

Helping the car to stick to the road.

That same downforce

Can supposedly suck up a manhole cover.

But is this myth destined for the drain?

This manhole-cover story is gonna be hard to test.

There's a ton of logistics just making sure

We don't damage the indycars in any way.

Well, what say we get our feet wet first

With a small-scale at nasa's water tunnel?

See if there's anything to this suction effect at all

And then go from there? Exactly.

Perfect.

I'm standing in the nasa ames research facility's

Fluid mechanics lab, and this place

Is almost like one of our second shops.

In that wind tunnel right there,

We tested whether or not you should leave your windows open

In a hurricane.

It doesn't matter!

Today, it's all about race cars.

They're studying the car's aerodynamics,

But they'll do it with water.

Air and water are very different mediums,

But when engineers work with them,

They tend to think of them both as fluids.

And because water is so much more dense than air,

If we inject a dye into a moving column of it,

We can more clearly visualize

How it's interacting with another object.

In this case, our object is the car.

The first test is simply to see

How the currents are moving around their 1/18-scale indycar.

All right. Let's turn on the dye.

This is where science gets seriously seductive.

Ohh.

Oh, that is so beautiful.

Once this smoothes out,

I feel like we might see something underneath.

Looks like the bottom surface of the car

Is very, incredibly low-turbulence.

The water tunnel,

In addition to looking really cool,

Is actually giving us exactly what we were hoping to see.

That is, these cars are famous for their downforce,

How much air pressure they're able to use

To push themselves into the ground

And give themselves more traction.

If that's the case,

We would expect to watch this move air over its top

Rather than under its bottom,

And that's what we're seeing from the model.

Now that we've seen that, it's time to find out what happens

When we drive this model over a scaled manhole cover,

And that's what our next test is.

Adam's mini manhole weighs next to nothing,

But it might disclose a clue as to whether

The shape of the car can show up some suction.

There we go.

For good measure, he pumps red dye into the tiny tunnel

To see if the predicted change in pressure

Sucks it up to the surface.

Ohh! Look at that!

So, our little car picked up

Our little, plastic manhole cover

And took it right along with it.

So, that means there is some kind of suction

Being created by this car.

To be clear, the car never actually touches the cover.

But the drag of its shape is sufficient

To pry loose the plastic and release the red dye.

It really seems like the forces we were looking for

Might actually be there,

And that gives us a perfect excuse,

As if we needed one,

To get to driving some real-sized indycars.

I'm gonna need a new outfit, clearly.

You know, the indycar experience wasn't that great.

It was awesome!

But unfortunately, we were not able

To test this myth thoroughly

Because the conditions weren't the same as a real race.

Yeah, you know, it wasn't very hot in the car,

And you didn't have the stress

Of a real, competitive situation,

Both of which would have made you sweat more.

I thin I have a solution for this.

I know a track nearby that's phenomenal.

It's gonna be hot, and we all can drive on it,

So it's more like a real race.

Cool.

The new venue is thunderhill raceway

In willows, california.

It's a very different kind of track, and so are the cars.

All right. Now, I know what you're thinking.

These aren't indycars.

But here's why this test might give us better data

Than the previous one.

Number one, temperature --

It's 90 degrees out here at thunderhill today,

And that's not even inside the car.

In these suits, in the cockpit, we're definitely gonna feel it.

Number two, physical exertion --

These cars, they don't have any power steering.

So, we're gonna be constantly fighting the wheel

To keep it on the track.

Finally, number three, competition --

All three of us are gonna be on the track at the same time

In a real race scenario.

Should be fun.

I got to tell you now though, I'm sort of scared "shiftless."

You'd better believe it.

In fact, kari's so distracted that this time,

She announces her weight to the world.

my beginning weight is 124.

Grant follows.

Oh, really? 145?

Then, tory.

All right, 180.

So, after this race, I should weight 170,

If this myth is true.

Let's start shifting those pounds off.

Once they've all had a last-minute health check...

About 74. Excellent.

...Our three rookie racers get the green light.

Hold on.

And within minutes, they're feeling the heat.

I'm feeling extraordinarily sweaty,

And I feel a lot of exertion on to --

Well, that would be turn number 11,

Where I'm having a hard time keeping the car on the track.

Ohh. Goodness gracious, that's fast.

So, apparently, the car has a mind of its own

And wants to go off-roading.

Even with only three cars,

I'm definitely feeling an adrenaline bump

Whenever I get close to kari, who's going much slower,

Or I try and catch tory, who's going much faster.

It just raises that level of adrenaline,

And that adrenaline burst raises your heart rate

And in turn burns a lot more calories.

Just like at indy,

They'll stop twice through the race

To refuel and regain some composure.

Do you feel dehydrated at all?

I'm -- like, my throat is super-dry.

Then, it's back to the tarmac

To hopefully forfeit another few pounds.

It occurs to me that there are three things

That make this a much different test than the sauna.

One is concentration.

You have to focus entirely on keeping this car on the road.

If you lapse for a second,

You're off the road and in the the dirt.

Two, this is a workout.

This is no power steering,

So you actually have to muscle it into place.

And the third thing -- it's the g load.

Let's just wind back to that first thing again.

I'm sure grant murmured something about concentration.

Ah.

Just a momentary lapse in concentration,

And I was off the tracks, spinning out,

Dirt flying everywhere.

This is hard.

Real hard.

Back on the track, tory's still pushing the pedal

As hard as he did on lap one.

This is probably the best day of experimenting ever on this show.

I'm exhausted. I'm sweaty. I'm hot.

My body is getting fatigued. I'm sore.

My neck is sore from holding the weight of the helmet.

I don't know if I'm losing 10 pounds of sweat weight,

But, man, it's tough work.

With kari and grant also back on the road --

Well, mostly on the road...

...The minutes melt away to the magic three-hour mark.

I am exhausted.

I honestly didn't think I would be this tired.

I feel like I just got beat up.

The truth of this myth rests

On the numbers they'll read on the scale.

They know they've put everything into this last-ditch attempt,

And it's ladies first.

Let's see.

5 1/2 pounds I lost.

What? Wow.

That's amazing. Oh, my gosh.

What a diet.

That's almost half the weight of the myth.

All right, grant. All right.

Let's see how much you lost.

4 1/2 pounds.

- Whoa. - Whoa.

I had no idea.

That's pretty incredible.

I lost 5 pounds after three hours of racing.

I mean, that's half the weight that the myth talks about.

There's no question that race-car reducing

Works like a charm.

But is it thumbs up or thumbs down

For this indycar myth?

So, how we gonna call this one?

Well, after three hours of racing,

We did manage to lose, on average, five pounds,

But that's not the 10 pounds that the myth talks about.

Yeah, but, what we're doing out there

And a real indy race are a little different.

Yeah, you know, I could see a real indy race

Being a lot more physically demanding.

I could see, under the right conditions,

With everything they have on the line,

That they could lose twice the weight that we did.

Yeah. Right set of circumstances not an everyday occurrence,

I think we could call this one plausible.

I agree. Plausible.

Now, who's driving home?

Not you. Let's just say that.

Me! What?

Please, don't try what you're about to see at home.

We're surrounded by experts that keep us safe.

We get hurt so you don't have to.

Welcome back.

We're at the indianapolis motor speedway,

And it's indycar versus manhole cover.

We're gonna bring an indycar up to full speed

And see whether its aerodynamics are powerful enough

To suck a manhole cover right out of the ground.

Well, look at that.

A manhole -- in the middle of nowhere.

It's not in the middle of nowhere.

We are in the middle of the indianapolis motor speedway complex,

And they dug this just for our experiment.

Cool. I'm gonna get to work.

And there's plenty to do.

As well as installing a camera,

They're hooking a force gauge up to the cover

To measure how much it moves, if at all.

But the star and the source of this myth is the cover.

Beautiful.

They made this one themselves from clear plastic

So sunlight gets through for the cameras.

And it weighs 30 pounds.

I know what you're saying.

You're saying, "adam, your see-through manhole cover doesn't weigh near as much

As a cast-iron manhole cover.

How can this be an accurate test?

And you're right, except that we've already thought of it.

We are going to make this weigh as much as this

With these four chunks of four-inch-diameter steel.

We are going to bolt them to the see-through manhole cover,

And it will weigh exactly as much

As a cast-iron manhole cover.

We got you covered.

There it is.

One scientifically accurate manhole cover.

And while nobody knows

How this full-scale test will pan out,

They've all considered the possible perils of success.

When the car comes down this road

At 150 miles an hour and drives over it,

It might just lift out of the ground.

And that could be very bad

For an instrument as precise as an indycar

With a ground clearance of as low as 7/8 of an inch.

So, jamie, right now,

Is tying some very high-strength line

So that, when we have the manhole cover in place,

It can only lift about half an inch.

It won't be able to actually hurt the car,

But we'll still be able to measure the force

That it's actually being pulled up with.

Logan gomez is our driver -- or should I say chauffeur --

Because adam will also have his butt

Just an inch off the bitumen.

The car is a tandem.

This is where the literal rubber meets the literal road

Meets the manhole cover.

This indy racing experience car

Exerts just as much downforce as the real thing.

Target speed for today's test is 150 miles per hour,

Pretty much the top speed for a city-street circuit.

In lieu of a steering wheel, my seat is equipped with these.

We call the hchs. They're known as holy crap handles.

Holy crap! Just hold on really tight.

With adam's knuckles whitening by the second,

Jamie takes charge for the first run.

I'm gonna call you guys on the radio

When you're doing 100 miles an hour, all right?

Copy. Have fun.

It's agreed they'll start off at a stately 100-per

To get the lay of the land.

It's fast.

Logan warms up the tires,

Shakes adam around like a strawberry daiquiri,

Then gets down to business.

100.

Logan's fast, focused, and right on target.

perfect.

Right about 100.

Did we go right over the manhole cover?

I believe so.

Did you see any movement?

I couldn't see it, but then it only comes up

About a half an inch before it's stopped.

It's true.

The key tool in measuring lift is the force meter,

And they just can't go on without sneaking a peak.

Nope, it's totally blank.

It's a rare myth that has to suck to succeed,

And this is one of the them.

The aim now is for logan to crank up the speed to 150.

Hey, adam, I can try one from the end of the runway,

See if we can get a bit more speed.

Let's do it.

With adam latched tight to his hch,

Logan whips the horses up to a full gallop.

140.

149.

You're getting faster. 149.

Beautiful.

Shall we go look at the evidence?

Let's go look at the evidence.

All right. My favorite part -- high-speed review.

I'm not seeing it.

Nothing. Absolute nothing.

It did not budge.

Nope.

Well. That's pretty definitive.

I think so.

We had our clear manhole cover

Weighing the same as a cast-iron manhole cover,

And logan passed over it several times at a top speed

Of almost 150 miles an hour.

And how much movement did we see on it? Bubkes.

Now, we're gonna pull all the weight from it

So our manhole cover only weighs 30 pounds

And see if we can get anything at all out of this.

And there is some science here to salvage.

30 pounds is the weight of an average, flat-screen tv.

And try lifting that with your home vacuum cleaner.

That's a lot like what adam and logan are trying now

With the natural suction of a low-slung race car.

Whatever happens, this will be the day's last indy drag race.

Well, that was a good speed. It was 148.

It's right up there with your top.

Bingo!

Let's see what we got.

Let's see it.

I'm gonna need some help getting out.

Finally, the cameras confirm a belated liftoff.

Oh, oh, oh! Movement!

That is so cool. Yep! It is lifting.

It is totally lifting.

Yep. Came right up.

That is awesome. Let's check the force gauge.

Okay.

37.

37? 37 pounds.

It would have been enough to lift this out of the ground,

But only just.

Well, here's the thing.

It did pull up our plastic manhole cover,

And that weighs 30 pounds,

Which means it's not exactly a paper bag.

But then, it's also not exactly

A cast-iron manhole cover, is it?

I got to say I am disappointed,

With all of our small-scale tests

Showing that there was definitely a force

Trying to lift that manhole cover.

And we did see a significant amount of lift

On the lighter manhole cover,

But it wasn't enough to pull up the full-sized, 130-pound one,

And not with a 150-mile-an-hour car.

It's busted. Yep. It's busted.

Let's go.

Surely, you've heard of the indianapolis motor speedway,

And not only because james franklin hyneman

Was born only 50 miles from here,

For it's 2 1/2-mile oval

Is one of the most famous in the racing world.

What you might not know is that this seating complex

Is the largest on our planet, seating up to 250,000 people

With standing room for 50,000 more --

300,000 total.

Even though it's empty, you can hear them screaming...

"science, science"...

Because today, this complex is ours for the testing.

So far, on our indycar special, we've seen sweat...

I am exhausted, and I feel sweaty as I could possibly be.

...Spills...

Goodness gracious, that's fast.

...And, most of all, speed.

You're getting faster. 149.

But there's one fast fable

They haven't seen through to the checkered flag.

The 30-foot match race between man and car

Is about to be rerun with some serious sports talent.

Let's tally up.

When I was driving the race car, I beat jamie three out of three.

When he was driving the race car,

He beat me two out of three with one tie.

neither of us is a professional driver.

Neither of us is a professional runner.

I think we need one of each to continue this test.

Lining up for the showdown are two the speediest guys on earth.

Ryan briscoe's the man who will be driving this home.

As for the runner, well,

Only six men in history have run a faster 200 meters.

You may recognize our runner for today's episode,

Wallace spearmon.

He's not only the seventh fastest man on the planet,

Being the 2012 200-meter olympic trials champion,

But he's also been on an episode of "Mythbusters" before.

We asked him to run on the water,

Something it turns out, surprisingly, humans can't do.

I don't think it's working, guys.

Try harder.

Today, we are asking him to do another superhuman feat,

Race himself against an indycar.

I don't mind telling you wallace is a little nervous about it.

Won't lose to no stinking car.

A car? I'm faster than a car.

I got this.

Now to find out if upping the talent quotient

Will swing the result.

All right, gentlemen! On your marks!

Get set!

Go!

Aah!

That was close.

Do you think you beat him there? I'm not sure.

Mm, probably the first 10, 15, but he kind of caught me,

So I'm about to go out, change a few things.

I think I can get him, though.

Round 1 went to ryan with that familiar, flying finish.

But wallace is just getting warmed up.

I can't tell who won!

In test two, they both got off to a whip-crack start,

But 30 feet on, it's another come-from-the-clouds win

For the car.

I just don't like losing.

Good, good! Let's keep that energy for the last run.

I got you. All right.

Unless wallace gets off to a near-perfect start

In the last race, this myth is about to be roadkill.

Maybe the smart thing to do is to rethink his tactics.

What's going on, wallace?

I'm not really known for my block start. I think I'd be quicker without them.

It's all about that first start. You got to get an edge on him.

Definitely. I'm gonna need something.

He sure is.

Even though wallace makes jamie and adam

Look like they're running backwards,

Ryan's also putting their "miss daisy" driving to shame.

His last run was just 1.48 seconds,

While the boys' best was 2 seconds dead.

Now it's pro versus pro for the very last time.

All right, gentlemen! On your marks!

Get set!

Go!

Car beat him.

Man.

I haven't got beat like that since kindergarten.

It's a three-from-three wipeout for wallace,

But he can tell his friends that he's raced at indianapolis.

According to our experts,

You can put out about a horsepower at max

For an impulse.

So, one horsepower, 700 horsepower --

That's not much of a contest, I guess.

It's not much of a thing, right?

It shouldn't be as close as it is.

And close it was from the very beginning.

So, why is that we came closer to beating an indycar

Than wallace did?

Well, let me tell you

It's not because we're faster than wallace.

The fact is that we're obviously not as experienced

At driving them as ryan is.

Let's just leave it at that.

And the last 10 feet, that's where it all is, isn't it?

Yeah.

In a 24 race, it's a dead heat.

We should try that next time.

Maybe even, like, at five or 10. Something I can run.

You want more?

We've got more.

Log on to discovery.com/mythbusters

And jump in!