Racecar hood flips open midrace - GIF

[nova_robotics]

[B]While approaching the lights at Baylands (a drag strip in Fremont Ca) an explosive force suddenly thrust my hood straight up into 128 mph air. Evidently the air coming through the grill pressurized the engine compartment enough to blow the latch.

That is genuinely interesting. I would have figured Mr. Bernoulli would pop it up a little bit, like 15 or 20 degrees or something. Very interesting.

[Saltfever]

I agree it seems logical to only crack open a little bit. However, I think it is aerodynamics at play. There is probably some kind of bow-wave coming over the front end and the wave is quite high with a low pressure are directly above the hood area. That low pressure area may be a few feet high. It also could be due to a ratio between the front grill area vs. the hood area. A large volume of pressurized air coming through the grill acting on a rather small hood. It was an extremely strange phenomena because I don't remember the hood dropping down when I slowed significantly. But maybe serious deceleration was holding it open at some point!

[hemmjo]

As we all know, bit of air moving over/under a large surface can lift things of significant size...