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Nanook Team Mushes On With Rick Hough In New Role
If nothing else, nostalgia drag racer Rick Hough is proof that while the body might have limitations, the human spirit is resilient. Hough is in an amazingly spunky mood at his Las Vegas home, adjusting to a new way of doing daily chores after a violent and fiery rollover crash during the recent NHRA Gatornationals at Gainesville, Florida, cost him his right hand earlier this month.
He's home now, a continent away from Shands Hospital at the University of Florida, where doctors spent nearly seven hours trying to save his hand that was crushed in the Saturday evening accident during an exhibition pass against Ron Hope's "Rat Trap" relic. The teams were in Gainesville to help promote the June 16-18 Hot Rod Reunion in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Meanwhile at the race shop in the shadow of the Mandalay Bay Casino and Resort, Hough's shaken his family is dealing with a mix of emotions. They're trying to sort out exactly what happened at Gainesville Raceway to "Nanook," their AA fuel altered hot rod, and how they can rebuild it sturdier for the next driver. For the Houghs, the show will go on. For Rick Hough, it will go on with him in an unfamiliar but challenging role as crew chief. a
d v e r t i s e m e n t 'Thank God It Was On Best Run Of My Life'
Rick Hough crashed in the Nanook car last August at Firebird Raceway in Boise, Idaho. That crash, Dave Hough said, put his son in the intensive-car unit of the hospital for 10-12 days with four cracked vertebrae in his neck. He sustained no other broken bones but had to wear a neck brace for four or five months.
But he said he has come to terms with the reality of it: "It is a tragedy, but he's alive and he's going to be productive." Rick Hough had his mind on performance, particularly the 6.16-second elapsed time he recorded on his ill-fated quarter-mile pass. After his surgery, he said, "Thank God it was on the best run of my life. I would've been depressed if it had been an eight-second run." Said Dave Hough, "He's upbeat. He has no regrets. His attitude is: 'Stuff happens. It happened. Hey, let's move on.' He's determined that this is not going to be a handicap." a
d v e r t i s e m e n t Why Did The Nanook Crash?
So he understands racing, understands his race car, and he understands that especially with fuel altered hot rods, sometimes things don't go as scripted. But he doesn't understand exactly what caused the Gainesville accident, although he has his theories.
But that's not enough to satisfy his curiosity. "But right in the lights it took a violent right-hand turn into the wall that he couldn't correct. Why? There may have been something on the track," he said.
However, once the Nanook got into the wall, it turned so sharply and became airborne. And Rick Hough had no control of the car at that point.
"His right arm restraint came loose from the double-D ring buckle," he said, adding, "I don't think there was any faulty [construction]." He said the Safety Safari had to cut off his son's jacket and pants and that the sanctioning body impounded his jacket and helmet. He said the items have been returned but that the family has not received any word about the conclusion of any investigation. "They haven't said anything. Right now it's a mystery," he said. "We're not people who sue people. We know what we're getting into. But we've looked at the circumstances, and no car makes that move by itself." a
d v e r t i s e m e n t
Boise Wreck Brings Improvements
"He had no neck pain, no body bruises, no broken bones, no nothing," he said. "His head and neck are good right now." He said had it not been for the hand injury, "he could've gone back to the race track."
Hough said people ask why they don't put a wing on the car. "We run this car like we did in 1973," he said. "It's the same configuration. That car ran 230 [mph] at Pomona. We're not trying to run quicker and faster. This is an exhibition car." a
d v e r t i s e m e n t
The Truth: Rick Hough Is Responsible Driver
And he said he wanted to set the record straight. He addressed the comments of people he called "uneducated fans" and "keyboard racers" who said Rick Hough couldn't drive the car properly. Some speculated about the car and the driver following the Boise incident. But Dave Hough said that the week before traveling to Florida, they tested at Las Vegas. He said the Nanook "ran perfectly," with a best quarter-mile pass of 6.20 seconds at 216 mph. "We tested in January and February, both the new car and his reflexes. And we were at Moroso [Motorsports Park, in West Palm Beach, Florida] the week before [the Gainesville accident]. a
d v e r t i s e m e n t
Rick Hough Makes Call
Veteran Top Fuel driver Bruce Litton, suffered hand damage in a racing accident, was one of the first to call Hough and encourage him.
"The outpouring has been overwhelming," he said, sharing that he immediately received 42 e-mail messages of concern and encouragement. I'm still trying to answer them all. The good wishes and outpouring . . . I really appreciate everything everybody has done." He said he is grateful for the support, for he, too, has benefited. Those words of encouragement bore him up, as well. He said he found it difficult in the immediate aftermath to find the right words for his son: "It's hard to encourage someone when you're hurting." The Nanook Lives On
"We don't want to let the name and the car die. It has a lot of history," Dave Hough said. "On the spot [at Gainesville] we said, 'We quit. That's it.' But right now our plan is to rebuild. We've got 15 dates booked this year.
The Nanook team is scheduled to make a European tour in 2007, to Sweden, Germany, and Santa Pod and the Goodwood Festival in England. If anyone would like to send wishes to the Houghs, the race car shop address is Nanook Racing, 3725 West Russell Road, Las Vegas, Nevada 89118.
Got a comment? Drop us a line at comppluseditor@aol.com.
a d v e r t i s e m e n t
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Nanook Racing patriarch Dave Hough said son Rick has been surprisingly optimistic since the crash, his second serious wreck in less than a year.
"To be honest, he has been in much higher spirits than his wife and his mother and me, too. These were two traumatic crashes." Dave Hough said he has struggled with "some guilt -- the feeling that I hurt my son. And it's hard to encourage someone when you're hurting." 
Dave Hough is no stage dad. He's a staging-lanes dad. He drove the Nanook for "a long, long time," he said, admitting he "got as much enjoyment out of watching him [Rick] drive the car and carry on the family tradition."
"It was an accident," he said, "and I don't think there's any blame."
"We followed [Funny Car driver] Eric Medlen, who had oiled down the track. They spent probably 20 minutes cleaning the track. They were running behind and rushing everybody. Was there something on the track? Who knows? My feeling is there was something on the track. I hate to say that, because I think NHRA does the best job they can absolutely do." 
The car flipped and rolled several times, and Dave Hough said, "During the flipping, his hand was crushed.
When the Boise accident occurred, the Nanook was not equipped with the protective devices that went into this year's version of the car. Those devices, Dave Hough said, spared his son further injury. 
The two accidents had some similarities. The Nightfire Nationals program, one of Firebird Raceway's biggest attractions, was running behind schedule. The Nanook had to run behind front-motor fuel cars, just like at the Gatornationals. The Gainesville wreck was eerily reminiscent, because it also happened during Saturday night qualifying and because the Nanook also hit the wall, barrel-rolled, and burst into flames.
One thing bothered Dave Hough nearly as much as the accident: wild talk, mainly on the Internet, about his son's driving capability.
"He has gone over 230 miles an hour in the car. He has made over 100 runs in the car. He knows how to drive it," his father said.
Unlike at Boise, Rick never lost consciousness at Gainesville. And he made the call to have the hand amputated.
Johnny West, Scott Kalitta's crew chief and a former fuel altered driver himself, was among the visitors Rick Hough had at the hospital in Gainesville, along with Funny Car driver Cory Lee, photographer Steve Reyes, and nostalgia Funny Car builder Dale Smith "A lot of guys stopped by our pit, too," Dave Hough said. 
Dave Hough, who drove the broken race car back across the country to his shop, said the team will rebuild the Nanook. 
"My deal to him [Rick] is that he'll be crew chief. I've been tuner for the last couple of years. We'll have another driver. If we rebuild the car, he'll want to drive. But no way will I let him. The way prosthetic hands are today, maybe he could, but . . . The family won't let him."
© Competitionplus 2005
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