The end of Eddie Hill’s career came at the same drag strip that the NHRA will be racing on this weekend in Baytown, Texas. It came on a top fuel pass that was not supposed to be his last ever, but rather another in a string of hundreds that he had made in his career. It came a race after another calamity had left Hill sore and banged up. It came at the exact wrong time.
You are going to see one of the most violent and incredible nitro engine explosions ever recorded here. The cast aluminum block that Eddie had in the car was purchased from a seller who likely should have known it was bad and should not have been peddling it in the first place. It’s true level of badness was exposed on this pass. With the belts slightly looser than they normally were because of soreness from that last incident, Hill had more room to move in the cockpit. The result was the front of his helmet bearing witness marks from colliding with the steering wheel after the explosion. Bad stuff.
Pay close attention to a couple of things here. The first is the size of the explosion itself, because it is amazing. The second is what slides down the track next to the car…it is the whole engine in a couple of pieces. The third is what’s left in the frame rails as the car passes the camera. Nothing that we can see. It MAY have left the crank in there but who really knows. We do know that Hill drove the car like a superhero after it blew up and cut a tire down, never wavering it an inch outside the center of his lane.
How did Eddie Hill’s career end? Like this.
Hit the image below to see Eddie Hill’s last top fuel pass ever – violent craziness –
DAMN… that second one was gnarly! Basically launching everything from the oil pan rails up, leaving the rotating assembly (what was left of it) still in the car..
Eddie was damn lucky in both instances.. And it’s ironic that Doug Herbert had what was arguably the most violent engine explosion in TF ever on the starting line a few years later…