ROY HILL IS A BUSY MAN

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Roy Hill is feeling happy, healthy and invigorated as the next chapter in a long life of drag racing unfolds before him.
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“I guess the biggest announcement is that Roy Hill’s fine and having a ball,” the Sophia, NC, native states. “We just picked up a body in white, took it to Jerry Haas, and we’re going to build a Super Stock A stick car and an A automatic car. An announcement will be made shortly about the drivers.”

The former Pro Stock and Pro Mod racer and now drag racing school operator is currently putting together what eventually will be a three-car NHRA Super Stock team with backing from Phoenix Construction’s James Finch, who also fields Phoenix Racing entries in NASCAR’s Nationwide and Sprint Cup series.

In addition to running driving schools as corporate events, Hill also is helping NASCAR superstar Kurt Busch get up to speed as an NHRA Pro Stock driver, guiding the transition of Pro Stock Motorcycle rider Angie Smith to four-wheeled Pro Stock competition and working with several other prominent teams and racers regarding their preparations for the 2011 season.

Hill recently spent three days with Busch in one of Hill’s school cars at Rockingham (NC) Dragway, where Busch earned his NHRA Pro Stock competition license. He and his instructors also spent four days with Busch’s crewmembers, teaching them the intricacies of between-round clutch, transmission and rear-end maintenance.

“I was very impressed with the people he has working for him and I think they’ll be able to handle the car with the guidance of Allen Johnson’s team and I’ll be there to help back up whatever they want done,” Hill says. “The main thing is Kurt did a fabulous job.”

The 2004 Sprint Cup champion is prepping as a part-time Pro Stock teammate to Allen Johnson, beginning at the NHRA Gatornationals at Gainesville, FL, next spring. The Dodge Avenger Busch will drive is currently at his race shop near Charlotte getting a new, fitted seat installed in time for his first test session in it within the next few weeks at Bradenton, FL, and again in January at Valdosta, GA.

The Valdosta test also will include the new Super Stock B car and “we’ll be testing the A car with a new driver in it,” Hill says.

“Also I just picked up a brand-new Cobra Jet (Mustang); we had number 14 and I picked up number 16. It’s over at Motorsports Designs (High Point, NC) being wrapped and we’re going to have it on display at the PRI show and what’s good about it is future Cobra Jet buyers can come in, drive this car and make sure they want one. Or, they can come in and go through the school, become racers and possibly win a seat to go out and run a (NHRA) points race and go to a national event,” says Hill, who returned to competition early this year at the wheel of an SS/B automatic Cobra Jet.

“This is going to be something that we’re going to have a lot of fun with. The Ford Cobra Jet Mustang, it’s tremendous what we’ve been able to do with it; we made it the fastest car in the country and James (Finch) has been having a lot of fun so he came in and said we’re going to have a match-race car, an A Automatic car, a B Automatic car and we’re going to have a Super Stock D Automatic car, for the new 2012 cars that are going to come with a smaller blower.”

Despite the arrival of his new ride, Hill says his own racing has to take a back seat as the search for Super Stock team drivers has commenced. It’s going to require more than just talent to land a ride, however.

hill “We’ll make no mistake that they will be people who can bring some money and they can do four races, they can do eight races or they can do 16 races of 10 national events and six points races,” he explains.

Additionally, Hill is looking forward to a full teaching schedule this off-season and into next year. Current plans call for school to be in session at Houston and Dallas, TX; Montgomery, AL; Charlotte, Piedmont and Rockingham, NC; Cecil County, MD; Epping, NH, and possibly Maple Grove, PA.

“The main thing is the Roy Hill Drag Racing School is making some headway again,” he says. “The economy has been slow and we didn’t do any schools during the summer, but since I came home from (the SEMA show in) Vegas we’ve been real busy, we’ve got some people out of New Orleans we’ve been working with; I just got a call from Bob Yonke and he’s sending Angie Smith in over the next couple of weeks.

“Bob’s already had Angie in (the car) and she did a good job, but he said she’s got to get runs and he wanted to know if I could help him out there, so the main thing is there’s a lot of good people calling and we’ve just got to find a track to go to and run in some decent temperatures.”

Yonke is not alone as an NHRA Pro Stock team owner turning to Hill for help in getting a new driver ready to race.

“Jim Cunningham from up near Washington, D.C., he called me about training a girl to go in his car along with Bob Glidden,” Hill says. “I don’t know if he’s adding another team, but he called me about that so we possibly will put two girls in the car together, we’ll probably have to go south with them in the next few weeks.”

Indeed, Roy Hill is a busy man these days.

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