| Eddie Hill | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Hill in 2008 | |
| Nationality | American |
| Born | March 6, 1936 |
| Retired | 1999 |
| NHRA Top Fuel | |
| Years active | 1963–1966, 1985–1999 |
| Teams | self-owned |
| Wins | 13 |
| Best finish | 1st in 1993 |
| Championship titles | |
| 12 national titles | |
| Awards | |
| ranked 14th on NHRA's Top 50 drivers (2001) Motorsports Hall of Fame of America (2002)[1] Drag Racing Hall of Fame (1978) Texas Motor Sports Hall of Fame (2007) | |
Eddie Hill (born March 6, 1936) is an American retired drag racer who won numerous drag racing championships on land and water.[2] Hill had the first run in the four second range (4.990 seconds), which earned him the nickname "Four Father of Drag Racing."[3] His other nicknames include "The Thrill",[2] "Holeshot Hill",[4] and "Fast Eddie".[5] In 1960, he set the NHRA record for the largest improvement in the elapsed time (e.t.) when he drove the quarter mile in 8.84 seconds to break the previous 9.40-second record.[6]
Hill raced at open competitions and Top Fuel events from 1955 until he retired in 1966. After opening a motorcycle shop, he returned several years later to race motorcycles. He started racing drag boats after attending a drag boat event in 1974 and he won championships in all of the major boat drag racing sanctioning bodies. Hill set the lowest wet elapsed time (e.t.) record with a 5.16-second run, which was lower than the land drag racing record of 5.39 seconds. He quit water drag racing after he suffered broken bones at a crash in Arizona and returned to land drag racing in 1985. Initially underfunded and unsuccessful, Hill set the all-time speed record at a National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) event in 1987, becoming the first person to hold both the land and water speed records simultaneously. In 1993, Hill became the NHRA's oldest Top Fuel champion. When Hill retired in 1999, he had won 12 national season point championships on land or water,[7] and had won more than 100 trophies in motorcycles and 86 drag events between his land and water careers.[7]
- ^ Eddie Hill at the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America
- ^ a b "Biography". Motorsports Hall of Fame of America. 2002. Archived from the original on January 10, 2008. Retrieved December 29, 2007.
- ^ "Hill's 500th four-second lap bittersweet". NHRA. 1999. Archived from the original on January 4, 2006. Retrieved April 10, 2008.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
TimesRecordNewswas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Burk, Jeff (July 1988). "Eddie Hill's Four-Second Combination". Drag Racing magazine. Peterson Publishing Company. p. 83.
- ^ "Eddie Hill Fact Sheet". The Auto Channel. Retrieved January 15, 2008.
- ^ a b "No. 14: Eddie Hill". National Hot Rod Association. 2001. Archived from the original on November 29, 2005. Retrieved December 30, 2007.