Racecars demand to be treated with respect no matter where they are — whether it’s on the track, or in this case, on the dyno. Australian racer Dale Heiler knows his way around racecars … he pilots a nasty twin-turbo Commodore and tunes high-horsepower cars regularly. When Heiler had Nathan Farrugia’s V8 RX3 on a hub dyno recently things got hot in all the wrong ways when the cockpit was briefly engulfed in flames while Heiler was in the driver’s seat.

The ability to measure up a car making well over 3,000 horsepower wasn’t possible until hub dynos became a viable option. These units hook directly up to the rear axles so there’s no tire slip and allow for full dyno pulls to be made. Making a pull on a hub dyno is a great way for a tuner to see what a car will do at full song without worrying about the loss of traction; however, it still puts the same amount of stress on a car that a pass at the track would.

Heiler has put his own Commodore on the dyno before so he’s no stranger to how the process works and just how violent the pulls can be. In this video from his Tuned By Dale Facebook page you can see that the RX3 he’s working on is no joke, this car has been well into the six-second zone on radials. As Heiler makes the pull a breather hose fell off the oil tank and that’s when all hell broke loose. The car was instantly filled with fire that Heiler wasn’t expecting. Thankfully, he only suffered some hair loss and a small burn from this quick but intense thermal event.