Items 1-5 above had nothing to do with nitro at all. Did you read the stuff in between the comments you lifted? Engine assembly error. Tranny was worn out. A stock case with about a zillion passes on it from 5 different owners. Nothing lasts forever even if you're running butane.
Item #6 above refers to our first season where WE WEREN'T DOING IT RIGHT and there was no one offering answers. I learned by doing. My "nitro notes" has photos of broken main caps and other carnage from that first year. All told, probably $1,500 in damage. Not too bad because my stuff is cheap. Some of the blown guys I run with that have more in pulleys than that
#6 was really about the red light. Not nitro's fault.
Item #7 was not even a mechanical problem - driver error again. Nitro was not at fault there. I had a hangnail and bad breath that day too. Damned nitro
Item #8 was when I over revved it on the burn out for the first qualifying pass and hurt pistons. Driver error again. I went on to win the event anyway with a little smoke on the right side. Nitro had nothing to do with it. This disaster cost $263 in parts to fix. I spent more on motel rooms and tow-rig gas than that - my junk is not exotic. The winnings more than covered the parts.
Of course, you didn't cut and paste anything GOOD from my website. Now I know what it feels like to have comments taken out of context, and listed all together so that someone can try to make their case and be right. Good job!
Take the combination you are running right now with race gas or methanol and spend enough on shiny new parts to make another 200-300 ft. lbs. of torque with it. You'll probably break trannies too and find the weak link in your setup eventually. So then would you declare the race gas evil? Methanol the nasty beast that breaks all your parts? No, you probably wouldn't. You'd think "Wow, tho$e part$ worked great - I'm making lot$ of power now!" What's the difference? The difference is how much you spent to go faster.
My point was (and still is) that if your goal is to make more power (which everyone seems to want to do) and the type of racing you do allows it (NHRA bracket racing does not allow nitro), then why wouldn't you put 30% in your tank and make an affordable couple of hundred foot pounds of torque? You could build a brand new bigger engine ($$$) to do that instead. Or put a blower on it ($$$$$) if you'd rather. If you think nitro is really that evil, then I'm certainly not here to change your mind. Lots of folks are curious however, and I encourage people to try it in lower percentages. It works.
Have fun,
Spud