if you look at the video https://www.rx7club.com/rx-7-audio-visual-lounge-143/hinsen-v-8-wreck-427891/ it looks like he hit the brakes (brake lights) after smoke poured out of the hood and then lost control.

This was a good write up from I assume part of the crew. Who was yapping about the cruise being a strong point? They were overheating the whole time, not to mention the battery problem. The people that were talking poop early in this thread really have egg on their face. To toot my own horn a little more, I do recall saying something about rush jobs never working out. I'm sure they'll be back strong next year having had time to sort things out etc.

"We had some problems. It all started when we got to the track Thursday night, we ran two passes on a pretty safe tune and went 9.8 and then a 9.6. On the 9.6 pass, the car was smoking like a freight train. So we pack things up at 10:30 and head to go find a place to work on the car. We work on the car till about 4:30 am and discover both of the brand new 62-1's are trashed and call for a driver to bring us up the 76s to put back on. We get up at 7 am to put the 76s back on and head to Comp Cams to get the car teched in and gas drained. All was going as planned until we discover our horn didn't work. We borrowed an air horn from someone, which was allowed, and off we were. We were a little worried about the cruise, which consisted of a 30 mile ride through Memphis on the 12 gallons of 93 octane gas they supplied. No chase vehicles were allowed, and if you got caught pulling over or shutting the engine off you were disqualified. Our car overheated almost the entire run, Big Stuff 3 showed us 234.5 degree temps (which we believe was the max the sensor was reading since it stayed at that temp). About 4 or so miles from the track the alternator quit charging the battery, but luckily the car made it to the staging lanes where all of the cars were allowed to cool off for about 40 minutes. During this time, no hoods or trunks were allowed to be opened, however pushing the cars through the lanes was allowed. We were almost last in the field so we could get the car cooled off as much as possible. When it was our turn to race, the battery wouldn't turn the car over. We were out at that point, disqualified. We pulled the car out of the line and got it started, and the decision was made to make an exhibition pass to at least show the crowd and Hot Rod Magazine that the car wasn't broken and that it could indeed make a pass. Brian pulled the car around after the event was over, staged up, and launched real real hard. The car took out the fastest it ever has, and was really moving down the track. About 300 feet from the finish line the car took a hard turn to the right and pretty much destroyed the front parts of the car when he hit the wall. The car limped over the finish line but still went a 9.5 at 130mph, we have no idea how fast he was going when he made the impact. Fortunately, he walked out without a scratch. I guess it's time to rebuild the car and make it faster, hopefully Hinson won't let this discourage him from doing that. Overall the weekend was fun, I learned a lot and got to see the fastest street cars in the nation. There were some very impressive rides there, and I will definetly be going back next year."

Did Hinson ever get that car on a scale? Just wondering.