It was an expensive start to the 2018 NHRA Western Swing for Cruz Pedregon in his Snap-On tools Toyota Camry. During qualifying at the 2018 Dodge NHRA Mile High Nationals Pedregon’s car suffered a parts failure in the valvetrain which caused an instantaneous and utterly brutal engine explosion, destroying a brand new body that Pedregon and his team had debuted at the event. At this writing, team members had rushed back to Indy and made repairs to what was left of the new piece. Needles to say, this was a very, very expensive explosion. The mounted bodies on these cars represent between $75,000-$90,000 all in. This is the reason why teams will take even the most mangled bodies into surgery and piece them back together.
So what happened here? When fuel engines blow up in this fashion it is almost 100% a parts failure on the run. The car did not have any holes out, meaning that all eight cylinders were firing. The biggest nitro engine disasters tend to happen when a camshaft breaks or a valve fails. It is the instantaneous ignition of all the fuel in the intake manifold and supercharger that causes a release of energy so violent it can blow the cars off the ground, bend the chassis, and send drivers hurtling into the wall.
Pedregon called on all of his guts and driving skills here as you will see. Amazingly he did not hit anything after the car vaporized around him. How one does not just let go of the wheel and let nature take its course here is beyond us. Knowing Cruz some, we can tell you that this guy is one of the toughest people in the class. He sat the next round out and came roaring back in qualifying and during eliminations. He’ll be in Sonoma this weekend.
