NYtimes has this article (free reg req, blah blah) about the booming high-tech hot rodding industry.

I've got a really good friend who is completely into this sort of hot rodding, so much so I've threatened to paint sutures on his car to make it look like the Frankenstein beast it is. His latest gizmo looks to me like a Coleco football game with a blue metal frame, but he swears it's good for much go-fast.

I never will forget the first time he saw my Alfa, which only has transistors in the radio, let alone ICUs in the engine compartment. "Where are all the wires?!?" was about the best he could do. :)

And, say what you will about ricers, a mid-10s trap time is damned impressive.

Update: Thought this slashdot comment was pretty damned interesting:

Every team has what is called a "7-post shaker rig". This is an electro-hydro-mechanical device that places a hydraulic ram under each tire, plus 3 more attached to the aero centre for feeding in aero loads. By playing back the loads recorded by the car during operation by the position sensors, load cells, strain gauges, and accelerometers though these rams, the engineers can watch the car operate under real racing conditions in the lab.

Well, the bigger teams transmit the telemetry coming off the car during the race back to the shop in England, where the shaker righ data is played back on a duplicate car on the shaker rig in near real-time, so that they can keep an eye open for problems.