In her 4/3 driver blog, Hillary describes her 3rd round Houston qualifying fireball this way:
"the car launched and everything felt pretty good. Then, as expected, I got to the bump in the track and my KB Dragster became a handful. I was determined to keep the thing in the groove. The motor wasn’t going to let me. It didn’t feel right, and just as I was about to take my foot off the throttle pedal….KA BOOM"
Now Hillary had entered Q3 with a 4.599 from Friday which was good for the #8 slot. On the Saturday run it appears that by 600 feet she had a hole out on the right side. By around 1000 feet she had lost a cylinder on the left side. She appears not to have lifted until the KA BOOM.
I can see staying with it if she was in the bottom of the field and conditions had improved since Friday. As it was nobody ran better than a 4.6 all day Saturday.
Shouldn't an experienced driver, aware of the qualifying situation, have lifted sooner? Shouldn't she have known that stomping on a 7-cylinder machine was a waste of parts when not much was at stake?

interested in other reactions...

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I often see things like this and wonder the same thing... Then I have to sit back and think about it... They only run for a bit over four seconds and I'm sure a lot is going through your head during the run... I also have no idea if they were told to run it out the back... And most importantly; I am not driving one (yet ) so I'm not in a great position to judge... Whats that saying about if it were easy?

The times that I really wonder what they were thinking is when they smoke the tires during qualifying and get back in it (under normal circumstances)... But with the new qualifying format I'm sure thats going to be more common with the unqualified cars on Sunday...

CJ Curtsinger

Keep in mind the last half of the track only takes about a second and a half to complete. So.. in that time frame, they have to realize there is a problem, think about what the problem is, and then decide if it's bad enough to lift. Not as easy as it sounds.

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There is always hindsight in every situation. I'm sure sitting down and telling the story is waaaaaaaay easier than sitting in front of such massive amounts of horsepower and trying to judge an anomoly in just a few seconds as you are accelerating to over 300 MPH.

Many times a driver like Force or Pedrgon or Capps in an interview after, who will tell you everything was fine right up until the car blew up. It is just not a single matter of experience.

I think you're being a little hard on her.

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It's always the driver's fault -- ask my crew

she's doing a fine job in the car this year so far.

sometimes we only have 1 or 2 thou to make a decision. Every Driver that is aware of what the car is doing during the run, well, it's 3/4ths of the driver's job to know this Along with track awareness. You'd be amazed at how many people (I don't call them drivers) couldn't tell you anything of what the car did or what they did during their 4 to 7 or 8 seconds on the track. That makes a crew chiefs job really difficult. So her acknowledging everything she that was going on, kudos!!

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Nancy Matter
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I was sitting in Sec A. at Gainsville, among people who seem to have the same seats evey year, the group behind me was 6 women and 4 men. They had comments about every driver. Among them was that Ashley had learned to drive well enough but had not mastered the tree. Melanie should have stayed with Top Fuel, as she had found a bit of success with it. Hillary was the worst of the current group of lady drivers, both in keeping the car stright and sleeping at the lights, and that the Kalitta camp namely Jim O was giving her a car with a great set up, more than enough to win its share of races. They talked about the wrong lane pass against Vandergriff. Maybe a lot of what they said is true, but I doubt any of them had driven in competition. I did hear others saying if a crew chief gives you a car running really well, than the driver must do their part. So who will win first Ashley, Melanie, or Hillary.

The bump in the right lane was giving people a lot of problems. I know that the bump is the reason Antron and all blew a motor friday night. The car hit the bump and the motor over-revved and hurt the motor. I'm sure this is the same thing that happened to Hillary. Give her a break.

Needless to say, Nancy, you have forgotten more about getting from A to B in a hurry than I will ever know. That's why I posted my comments in the form of a question.
I assume that a hired-hand driver is expected to understand the situation--e.g. is this a qualifying run for a car that is pretty safely in the show or a win-or-go-home deal that calls for legging it out.

I might be being unfair--I don't know. I will admit to watching Hillary more carefully ever since she passed Vandergriff at the lights on the wrong side of HIS lane in Columbus a couple of years ago.

Again, this was a QUESTION: Can a top fuel pilot be expected to sense a cylinder out early on a safe qualifying run?

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Man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward. ~Job 5:7
Buy the ticket, take the ride. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

Huh? I'm sorry, I don't understand what you're saying here.

I agree, in the past, she's has made some bad judgement calls and over drove in many situations. But this is her 3rd year now, and she's made leaps and bounds of improvements in driving the car.

And to ANSWER your question: Yes, a driver can tell when a cylinder goes out. However, A cylinder going out (although it can bang a motor occasionally) makes any car not happy, so does that mean a driver is supposed to lift each time if the team is after valuable data? If the noise she heard was caused from the bump in the track (which you could see on the computer) and zinged the motor, she wouldn't have had time to react, which was my point on the first post. No one would have.

Dennis: I find your post very interesting. Thanks for sharing some of your experience.

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Nancy Matter
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I'd say Nancy's capable of assessing Hillary's situation, she's gone 250 MPH. None of us have!

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Thanks Joe!!!

I rewrote my original post a little since I had to change something that didn't make mechanical sense when I read it back. LOL

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Nancy Matter
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No........

come on now hillarys round wins speak for them self...three more s years with mr blacks $$$ im sure she will win....???

Reaction? OK.... How about Mac Savage, Chris Glass, Troy, Jim O and the rest of the guys INCLUDING the driver did one hell of a job getting that race car cleaned up, repaired, back together and back on the track after that boomer. Who cares how much money it cost? I think the experience was good for the crew more than anything else. I'm not going to get into an argument about what Hillary did or did not do or what she should have done..... there's enough of that on Fox News & CNN right now .......

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Antron was eloquent on Wind Tunnel tonight. Talked about how he is learning how things happen in "microseconds" in a Top Fueler and sorting out things going wrong from the sheer "violence" of a run.
I think this is a circumstance where no one who has not driven a TF is not qualified to comment (yes, you are entitled to your opinion).
I'd have a real problem driving a TF - the HANS device would prevent me from getting my shoulders up around my ears - waiting for the blowup and flames in my face -

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