A couple weekends ago I was calling the action at The Strip on the grounds of Las Vegas Motor Speedway. When I was thinking back over memorable things that have happened at the race over the years I was actually spurred on to find video of Hillary Will’s massive top fuel crash from a test session a the track. She walked away but this is one of the nastier top fuel calamities you will ever see.
The two camera angles below are very different. The first one was taken from the ESPN broadcast of the race. We’re not sure why those guys were filming a test session but they were and they got the craziness of the wreck up lose and from a head-on perspective. Meanwhile the second angle is from a fixed camera position in the timing tower of the track itself. Between the two of them, they tell an amazing story.
You’ll see Will’s car start to make some weird moves at the big end and she fights it hard until it looks like a tire explodes, wiping out the wing, and triggering a complete loss of control. The rear end breaks off the car and event the engine flies off the mounts and hurtles over the wall, spewing flame, dirt, and whatever else in all directions.
Will was a great ambassador for the sport and while she was not the most consistent top fuel pilot of all time she had the grit and the guts to drive one of these things before it wreaked and then after this amazing situation that you’ll see below.
The engine flying off certainly helped to calm the rest of the chassis because it was so much lighter with the nitro burning hemi tumbling through the dirt and rocks. Incredible stuff.
