Thundering afterburner pops, billowing mountains of smoke, and incredible fiery pyrotechnic displays have been Bob Motz’s calling cards for the best part of the last thirty years.

During that time, the ageless “King of Quake” has thrilled audiences across the country with his ground-pounding jet-powered W900B Kenworth. Two years ago, however, the fire that made Motz famous nearly cost him his life.

June 23, 2007 is a date that Motz, his son Scott, and hundreds of others will never forget. Preparing to make another of his awe-inspiring runs during a show at West Virginia’s Kanawa Valley Motorsports Park, something went seriously wrong. The whole truck became engulfed in flames, and after what seemed a horrifying eternity Motz, with the help of his courageous son, crawled out of the passenger’s side door and dropped, burning, to the ground. Scott and a track worker were themselves burned attempting to smother the flames and save Bob’s life.

The elder Motz suffered second and third degree burns and was airlifted, along with his son, to Cabell Huntington Hospital’s burn unit. Scott was treated for his injuries and released, but Bob was in for a long, painful period of recovery.

But he’s a tough, tough man, and not at all ready to give up something he loves so much.

“Physically I’m doing pretty well,” Motz said. “I still have a little healing to do – I have to have some minor surgery on one of my fingers, but other than that I’m in pretty good shape. I’ve been working every day – just going at it.”

Looking back at the night when his world erupted in a searing ball of fire, Motz recalled the circumstances surrounding the terrifying incident.

“The fire was caused by a breakage in a main fuel line,” Motz said. “It was an aircraft-type line and something we had run under the same pressures for years without any problems. The thing is that even when the engine is shut off at the end of a normal run and I’m out of the truck the engine is turning over and the pumps are still operating. At Kanawa, even though the engine was shut down, it was still pumping fuel through the broken line, and once the fuel ignited the pumps just kept feeding the fire. My son Scott got the doors open and pulled me away from the truck after I dropped to the ground. Having never been in a fire before it was an experience that I’ll never forget and one I don’t ever want to have again.”

Now, unbelievably, after long, often agonizing, months of rehabilitation, the man recognized as the one true superstar in the world of quarter-mile jets is again ready for action on the IHRA circuit.

“I’m at an age when people think about retiring, and to be honest I have thought about it two or three times but it has never happened because I enjoy it too much,” Motz said. “Scott loves to do this as much as I do, and he’s my right-hand man. He’s always been around these vehicles and now he does all the work on them – welding and fabricating just about everything. He has made some passes in the truck but it’s not to his liking. He likes to build and make things work, and he takes pretty good care of his dad, so that’s way more important. We’re still a family oriented team, and we have a good partnership.”

Proof of that good partnership is the fact that Scott Motz has been keeping real busy ever since his dad’s accident, and now that Bob is ready to get back behind the wheel of his earth-shaking K-whopper,  the team has something they haven’t had for a long time – a second truck.

“Yeah, we have two ready-to-run trucks now, so we’re making our comeback with the older one of the two, which we completely refurbished,” Motz said when the topic came back around to his much-anticipated return to action. “The one that burned is just about ready to go, too. We plan to have it as a spare, and that’s something we haven’t had for a lot of years. It has taken us a long time to build a second truck – trying to find the parts and pieces has been an unbelievable job. Now I have a barn and a half full of stuff just so we can keep this thing going.”

Of course the single most important and most expensive component of a jet vehicle is the jet engine itself. Bob’s trucks are powered by the famous General Electric J79 Turbojet, developed in the early 1950s and used to push Cold War and Vietnam-era aircraft such as the B-58 Hustler and F-4 Phantom II to new levels of performance. Once common on the surplus market, the supply has virtually dried up.

“Engines are getting very hard to find and you never know where you’ll come across one,” said Motz. ”People will call me and tell me they saw one, and we’ll try to chase it down. Sometimes you find them and sometimes you don’t. It’s a never-ending search, and whenever I find any pieces and parts I grab them up, because you never know when you might need it.

“Since these engines are still being used in the fighter planes that Iran and Argentina fly, our government does everything they can to make sure they have no spare parts,” Motz said. “Any exporters that do have permission to sell parts, well, I can tell you that you’ll pay restricted materials prices and not drag racing prices. The J79s we use cost 4.8 million new, and today a similar engine costs 14 million. The fuel control system alone is a hundred and eighty thousand if you buy airworthy stuff. That’s why when you find something at what you consider a normal price you better buy it.

“The last engine I bought I got from a surplus place,” Motz said. “They were moving and didn’t want to take it with them. We’re working on installing that one in the truck we’re rebuilding. And of course isn’t not a simple deal to put one in a truck like ours because we mount them upside down to what they are in a plane. It’s always a whole lot of work. 20-hour days are pretty common around here. It just never ends.”

And the workload is going to get even heavier soon for the Motz family as the 2009 racing season approaches. Bob and Scott are working as far ahead as they can in preparation for their return to the circuit.

“We tested the truck last fall and that let us check out things we hadn’t run for a while,” Motz said. “Everything seemed to be fine, so we’re looking forward to getting back on the road this year. On the IHRA side we’ll be at the season opener at Baton Rouge in March, Dallas in May, and then New England and Budds Creek in September. We’re also going to do O’Reilly Thunder Jam events at Motor Mile Dragway, May 9th, Skyview Drags, Binghamton, NY, and Carolina Dragway, August 29th. We’re also headlining at "Jet Warz," March 14th at Immokalee Regional Raceway in Florida.

“I really love this stuff, but it’s just a crazy deal all around,” said Motz in conclusion. “People are always asking me how I got into this racket in the first place, and I just smile and tell them that I hung around with all the wrong people in my younger days. The fact is I have always raced something – I raced motorcycles a long time ago, and then spent a lot of time road racing. I tried to get into the sports car deal, but I couldn’t get along with those people, so I ended up hanging out with and eventually working with Walt and Art Arfons. I went to the Bonneville Salt Flats with them, and worked on their rocket and jet cars. The chance finally came along for me to drive one of their cars; something I thought might be interesting. Well, I’ve been doing it ever since, so I guess it really was!”

Courage, determination, toughness, and a sense of purpose all describe the amazing Mr. Motz. With good reason fans across the country are anxiously awaiting the return of an extreme motorsports pioneer, the one and only “King of Quake.”

Read the complete, in-depth Bob Motz story in the February 20 issue of DRM