Roger Richards is one of the great modern day drag racing photographers. He’s been shooting races for years and has amassed an amazing library of images. He’s also one heck of a nice guy and someone I have known for more than 10 years now. Roger posted this totally awesome carnage photo on his Facebook page and gave us permission to run it on the blog.
Taken at Grand Bend, Ontario in 2000 this is the remains of the nitro burning Hemi that tried, but failed to power Bruce Litton’s Top Fuel dragster down the track. We’re not sure if he wants his name on this one but Richard Hartman was the crew chief on the car at that time.
What happened? Well, apparently lots of everything happened all at the wrong time. Either that or someone slipped a small nuclear device into the bottom of the block. Caption it if you want, or just gawk at it for minutes like I did.
Thanks to Roger Richards for allowing us to use this photo, you rule!
The lack of clutch dust all over everything would suggest to me that this happened when they went to start it.
“The lack of clutch dust all over everything would suggest to me that this happened when they went to start it.”
That’s an interesting observation. I wouldn’t have ever thought of it.
Since the head studs are intact and straight, and the gaskets in place I would guess that the heads were unbolted rather than blown off of the block.
Maybe they cleaned it up a bit before pulling the heads?
Despite the title of my comment, I’m not sure that there’s enough left to make a coffee table!
Just needs a few bearings and it’s ready to rock again.
One word
Cha-Ching! Big money.
Nothing a little JB Weld won’t fix, fight? It says on the box that its been used to fix engine blocks.
“I thought YOU put the oil in!”
well heres your problem
Bang!
It’s called hydraulic lock. No where to go but down.
Those are some strong oil pan bolts!!!
I saw something like that on a Pro Mod once when the crank broke. The block was missing from the bottom of the head studs down, and I saw a chunk in a bucket that had the bottom blower pulley, a piece of crank with the main cap still bolted down to part of the block, and a couple of rods still attached.
A little too much dynamite there Butch!