Eddie Hill
| Eddie Hill | |
|---|---|
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Hill in 2008
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| Nationality | United States |
| 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) inducted in the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America (2002) Drag Racing Hall of Fame (1978) Texas Motor Sports Hall of Fame (2007) |
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Eddie Hill (born March 6, 1936) is a retired American drag racer who won numerous drag racing championships on land and water. Hill had the first run in the four second range (4.990 seconds), which earned him the nickname "Four Father of Drag Racing." His other nicknames include "The Thrill", "Holeshot Hill", and "Fast Eddie". 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.
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, and had won more than 100 trophies in motorcycles and 86 drag events between his land and water careers.
In 1947, 11-year-old Hill won the Tri-State Motor Scooter Flat Track championship in Shreveport, Louisiana. After graduating from Longview High School, he graduated from college in 1957 with an industrial technology degree from Texas A&M University.
Hill's entered his first drag race at the Flying Fish Lodge in Karnack, Texas in 1955. Hill drove his home-built hot rod to the track and won the event. The hot rod had a Model T frame and an Oldsmobile V8 engine. In 1958, he built his second dragster using parts that his employer allowed him to scavenge while working as a sales engineer at a foundry in Wichita Falls, Texas. He used the dragster to set the Texas state low elapsed time (e.t.) that year with a 9.93-second pass. The following year, Hill won the state championship with a 9.25-second pass at 161 miles per hour (259 kilometers per hour). Hill won his first national event in 1959 in a Hot Gas race at an American Hot Rod Association (AHRA) national championship event in Great Bend, Kansas. Hill earned $500 for an appearance at Inyokern, California to race Jack Chrisman and his Sidewinder dragster. One of his four passes in the 1960 event set the B/Gas dragster record at 163.04 mph (262.39 km/h), so Hill quit his job to become a full-time drag racer. Later that season he set the a new A/Gas low e.t. at 8.84 seconds and set the speed record in the class at 161.29 mph (259.57 km/h).
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