FourFather

If you are interested to that extent you can click on my website www.eddiehillsfuncycles.com and click on Meet Eddie Hill or click on racing career.

If you Google, use Eddie and Ercie Hill.

Or, to save you that trouble, I'm the only person to win the yearly dragracing championship, and hold the records, in the Top Fuel class on both land and water.

Thanks for asking, and thanks for the compliment on my Vette!



Eddie

titletaker

Doing it on water must be a real thrill and take some serious cahoney's.
Sounds like speed should be your middle name. How does the Ford Gt compare to the vette? Sorry to disrupt your for sale thread. Good luck on the sale.

FourFather

Thank you!

We miss hanging out with the folks (fans), too!

But we are really enjoying our time off, and getting to do what WE want to do, instead of what the sponsors want done. We REALLY enjoyed our racing career, but no desire to return--


Eddie

Hobs

Eddie,
Which track is this ? I vividly remember a similar incident at the Texas Motorplex. We were sitting at about the ~330 foot point half way up the stands. When the engine let go the heat was unbelievable even that far away! Can't imagine what it was like for you. I then started getting a bit concerned about where all those parts were going. Winston vision (yeah that far back) showed you at the far end and there was nothing visible between the frame rails where the engine had been. Glad the only thing hurt was your pocket book.

Hobs

jim482

Beautiful daschund puppy. They are great with kids and adults alike.
Best of luck with your new family member Sweetie P....

Nice Vert by the way...Glad you joined the Corvette Forum.
Even when the Vette is sold, you will always be welcome here.....

FourFather

Thank you, sir! It's fun for me, as well, to hang with like-minded folks here on the Forum!

I HAVE been blessed with some serious fun, more than just about anyone I know, and been able to basically do just exactly what I wanted to do my whole life, and get paid for it!

Is this a great country, or what?


And a reminder that I really ought to sell one of these four-

And the only one I can sell without having to pay long-term capital gains tax, is the Vette Vert. I acquired the other three in trade for my Lola T-70, under I.R.S. section 1031 Like-Kind exchange, and if/when I sell one of those three, I owe tax. But not on the Vette. And I don't need FOUR pretty-day cars.


Thanks for looking!

Eddie

Grey Ghost

Hi Eddie,

Thats an awesome C6 ! Wish I could afford one and I would be all over it. I also noticed some RC aircraft flying pictures. I forget what they call it - giant scale sport ? Or something...? I have flown some trainers. But man, those big boys that you make stand on their tail are too cool !!! Looks like many of us on this board share similar interest. Hope you have time to hang around and chat with us !

deanoshiro

Your print is hanging on my wall! God bless you.

susko

Eddie, I am interested in your vette.. I can offer you $40,000 cash.


Ha, I just low-balled Eddie Hill.

Good luck with the sale, she looks great!!

Best Regards,
Mike

FourFather

Hi, Mark-

Thank you!

I do still get on the roof to star-gaze, watched the space station go by, a few weeks ago- very awe inspiring!

Took the Ford GT to our little Cowboy Church in Henrietta, Tx. today and gave a couple small boys (and, separately, their parents) a few rather spirited 0-60 and back down, and around a few corners ever so slightly crossed up- around the small courthouse square in downtown Henrietta. There was an awful lot of giggling going on, and not all of it was from my side!

As we were leaving, after the rides were over, Ercie said, You do know that that is the police station across the street from the court house that you've been lapping, don't you?

No, I did not notice that---they must have been closed, though


Eddie

FourFather

Houston--my last ride in a Top Fuel car, and the last time we've been to a dragstrip.

That was a brand new block on it's first run, and it did not go the full quarter mile, before the block basically shattered like glass- a defective cast block that was extremely porous and brittle, actually a reject block that should have been rejected/scrapped, but instead was sold to us as a good one-- After this, and probably partly BECAUSE of this incident, NHRA made billet blocks mandatory--no more cast blocks allowed.

I have frame-by-frame video showing the block coming apart- one cylinder head leaving the car with one side of the block still with it, and after the parts had all scattered into an area about three times the normal engine size, the hot parts (headers) ignited the hot oil and all that raw nitro spraying around. The engine came apart several frames before the fireball, easy to see on the video. Most people that saw the incident live, probably thought that there was an internal explosion that blew the block apart--not so. All the internal parts, crank, rods, pistons, bearings, etc. were fine.

The intense pressure-wave from the fireball blew my head and shoulders so far forward that my butterfly steering wheel put a prang in the front of my helmet! In one frame, my head is in the normal position, in the next it is against the steering wheel, and the next it's back in the normal position again. And all this with my shoulder harness literally as tight as my crew guy can pull them, while I'm holding a deep breath. So my belts leave me only enough room to breathe, no more. So when I got shoved/blown that far forward, something had to give--- and it was my L-1 vertebra- 40% compression fracture, and the most pain I've ever felt. It hurt so bad I thought a piece of frame tubing or something had punctured my back.

I told the Safety Safari to cut the cage off the car (the only time in my career that I allowed one of my cars to be cut up to get me out) and to lift me very carefully straight up and out, without flexing my back. Ercie was there watching, of course, and she said the pain was so bad that the tears were actually squirting forward, out of my eyes!

So my last ride ever, at a dragstrip, was out of there, in an ambulance!

Like it also was, at my last drag boat race!

I've never been back to a boat or a car drag race.

But I'm O.K. now.


Except for the brain damage--



Which the doctors all said was a pre-existing condition, or else I wouln't have been going that fast, anyway!

Eddie

FourFather

Hi, Hope you don't mind a public answer to your PM--

Question. Why we are no longer racing?


The short answer is---lack of sponsorship.

Pennzoil, our major sponsor for many years, had already told us at mid-year 1999, that they were not going to renew our contract for 2000. The budget then, for a Top Fuel Championship contender, was over two million dollars per year. We had been unable to secure a suitable Primary sponsor in the couple of months that had elapsed between when we knew we needed a new primary sponsor, and the back-breaking incident at Houston that I just described in my previous post.

And the extremely painful broken back stopped our sponsor search, and gave us time to reflect on our career and do some soul-searching as to whether we really wanted to continue.

I thought about all the motorcycle crashes.

The front-engined Top Fuel fires where I was always sitting in the biggest and hottest part of the fires (before there were firesuits).

Getting thrown out of a Top Fuel boat and having my body (in front of the crashing boat) clocked at 166mph

The Top Fuel boat crash at Firebird in Phoenix, at over 200 mph, that came close to ruining my eyes, and did break seven bones.

The blowover at Pomona where the car was straight up at 236 mph in the timing lights while it was going over backwards.

The horrible crash at Sonoma where the tread came off the rear tires at over 300 mph and the car disintegrated and crashed, with fire, for 5/8 of a mile, leaving just me and my roll cage with the engine laying beside me with some cables and hoses still attached. The only thing undamaged out of the car was my little windshield, with the Racers For Christ decal on it!

It is probably true that I'm the most-crashed person still alive.

And, after all, we had already been able to race more than just about anyone, and got to do it with a nice variety of rides, and with some success--- it just seemed like a good time to say when.


But if we had been able to get sponsorship, we'd still be out there!


Thanks for asking!

Eddie

FourFather

Thanks, Jim!

Sweetie P is very smart! It only took her about two weeks to train us to do exactly what she wants!

Thanks again-- it always feels like I'm among friends, here on the forum!

Eddie

joghotrod

Hi again Eddie,

I am sorry you are selling your Vette, but I guess with so many toys one has to go. I am glad you and Ercie are still doing fine. Remember the last time I saw you was when you and Ercie were going to be in a parade in your home town.

Do you think this thread will go 17 pages like the one when you sold your C5? Good luck on the sale.

Jimmy

cthusker

Ed I've followed your interesting, colorful and very successful career for years! Having said that I can’t decide whether you’re the luckiest or unluckiest racer that ever lived…
Bottom line is I’m extremely happy you managed to survive and recover from some of the worst racing crashes ever seen on the planet! I’m surprised your wife didn’t kill you years ago after putting her through all those mind numbing accidents. I really think she deserves a ton of respect just putting up with you all these years. I salute you for not only preserving but also winning more than most in big time racing circles! Best of luck to you and yours in the future! Enjoy your retirement from racing and it looks like you have plenty of toys to keep you busy! BTW that’s a great looking vette and also the fastest color…..

FourFather

Thr R/C bug bit me really hard when I didn't have a race car to drive anymore--I think that's the main thing that preserved my sanity( like as if I ever really had any- )

The smaller of these two has a two cylinder horizontally opposed two-cycle 110 cc engine with a bit over 10 HP. Pulls a 28 inch diameter carbon fiber prop in the 6000+ Rpm range. It's a 33%, or 1/3 scale; it's one third the size of the full-scale aerobatic pilot-carrying plane that it is modeled after. Wingspan 102 inches.

The larger SuperXtra is 42% of full-size. 150 cc two cylinder, about 16 HP, pulling a 32inch diameter prop. 122 inch wingspan.

Lotsa fun!

Eddie

FourFather

I have the original artwork of that print hanging on my wall, too.

But it is NOT my favorite memory!


Thank you sir! God DOES bless me--Every Day!!


Eddie

FourFather

Mike, I am interested in selling you my Vette. Make it $60,000 cash and you've bought ONE FINE AUTOMOBILE!!

Ha, I just hi-balled Mike.

But, seriously, thanks for the good luck, compliment, and the bump to the top!


Eddie

forloop

http://www.nhra.com/50th/top50/E_Hill14.html

TTT

FourFather

Hi, Jimmy.

Good to hear from you again. Hope y'all are still Vette'n like the last time we saw you.

17 pages? Who knows?


I love the Vette, but it's the only one I can sell without paying capital gains tax on the proceeds of the sale--

Thanks!

Eddie