When the NHRA season comes down the stretch everyone kind of finds another gear of intensity and competitiveness. Last weekend’s event at World Wide Technology Raceway outside of St Louis was proof of this as we saw some of the biggest carnage of the year all packed into the three days of the event. From pro modified racer Rick Hord suffering a flaming wreck in a near brand new car to top fuel veteran Luigi Novelli exploding an engine at night in brilliant fashion to Tim Wilkerson destroying a funny car body in a way he never had before, it was one thing after another on the banks of the Mississippi.
The first video below is the Rick Hord crash and it is an illustration of how hard modern pro modified racing is. You’ll see the car launch and then when the power comes in, it pulls the front end. The machine moved a couple of degrees left in terms of front end direction and when it landed it was unsettled, broke traction and reduced the talented Rick Hord to passenger status. Thankfully Hord climbed out of the car appearing no worse for the experience but clearly frustrated.
Luigi Novelli and his Chicagoland based top fuel team have made progress on their program over the last season, unfortunately for them they did not make the show in St Louis but they did provide the fans with an early fireworks display via a wild engine failure at night. All of the badness appears to be coming from the rear of the engine and eventually they really let the fire out. This is a tough one but it certainly looks amazing under the lights.
Lastly Tim Wilkerson is a guy who is not known for spectacular explosions. As best we can tell this is the first time the guy has ever sent a body off of his car. It was a tough break for the well loved competitor from Illinois. The good news is that Wilk was back the next morning, about 18 house after the boomer and he won first round. Tough dude for sure.
