I have had an offer to pilot one. If not married and a kid....who am I kidding that is a big H E double hockey sticks NO. Last time I checked my ball of steel were not stainless. Ill post some pics of that rocket ship though.

I remember testing in Dallas one time after the event when I was running Pro Stock, and sunday night we all got together to swap stories and booze in the funny car pits. After watching Ed "The Ace" McCullough do a fire burnout in his rental car with his 80 year old mother in the passenger seat (!!:cool::eekdrop:), Fuzzy (Eddies crew chief for years) mentioned that Eddie had said "I quit boats because I looked around one day and realized most of my friends were dead."

So, not no, but HAILL no! I would not drive one of those.

I use to crew on an alcohol hydro (York Boys XXXtreme Toy) for a couple of years and made 1 pass in it and that said no way in hell would I get in a TFH. I know a bunch of those guys and have witnessed some wicked crashes but fortunate enough not to ever be present at a fatal one! Thats for sure a different breed of man. Owner of Problem Child is Eddie Knox and he himself is a wild man and good guy! Fun days and hard work. Cool thread

The hyros are going much faster today than when Eddie Hill raced, but the safety technology has inproved too, and the hydros now run twin counter rotating props which, I assume, makes it easier to drive, and if the boat goes over the saftey capsules are pretty stout. Even with all that, still I do not desire to run a hydro at 260+ mph.....that is a skill set!

That is a great video. Did he feather the throttle when the boat planed and broke the props loose? I was trying to figure that out by looking at the water being pushed by the props and the exhaust firing. Or do the drivers just stay-in-it the whole time? I would think you would have to feather the throttle (pedal it) so not to cavitate the sh*t out of the props if the props broke loose and that much horsepower being applied all at once, but that is just my wild ass guess, someone teach me...

All I can say is, if Satan came to Earth and decided to buy a boat, this is what he would run. :D

You have to have balls of brass just to run a top fuel dragster of funny car. To run one of these death-forks, they would need to be made of platinum!

If the boat takes a "set" (after the hop)they typically stay in it the whole ride unless the boat moves around or does something too wicked. If not they sometimes will whack it again to see if it will reset. The top fuel boats don't like pedaling and neither do crew chief's cause it usually ends up hard on the equipment. Timing of fuel and ignition curve begin when the pedal is fully depressed. Sometimes what looks like pedaling can be the props loading and unloading as the back of the boat pops up in a less than an ideal set-up, like too much lift or down on power. Tricky business and temperamental machines.

Sunkin has....

How did I know this thread would not end with out sunken being mentioned! LOL

I have a or had a vcr tape of Eddie Hills crash. I will look for it. I rember them saying He would be the first to break 200 mph. He was an crashed. The motor was flying in the air an was still screamimg. The crash was at the top end of the run. They said He had gallons of water under His skin. It was a volant crash.