The latest update as of February 10, 2025

The SHOT heard around the drag racing world

I missed this story until earlier today, but watching the video made me think that Top Alcohol Funny Car leaped into the unknown after the "Pirate Ship" Injected Nitro Funny Car of Bartone, Boggs & Bellemeur simply annihilated the (unofficial) records for the class, by a TON!. When the car crossed the Gainesville Raceway finish line on a test run and the scoreboard lit up with a 5.288 - 283.49 result.... what can you say? other than WTF.

Here is the story as posted on Facebook by Drag Illustrated

Reigning NHRA Top Alcohol Funny Car world champion team comprised of the Bartone Bros., tuner Steve Boggs and driver Sean Bellemeur sent shockwaves through the sport with the debut of their new Red Line Oil/Roger Dean/Talon Air 2025 Camaro sporting a new injected nitromethane aluminum Hemi.

While testing during a scheduled bracket race at Gainesville (FL) Raceway on Sunday, February 9, Californian Bellemeur clocked the quickest and fastest run ever for an unblown Funny Car at 5.41 at 241 mph and then returned to unleash an astounding 5.288-second blast at 283.49 mph.

The run exceeded the best injected FC numbers set by Mick Steele at 5.45 at 270 mph but annihilated the best performances by any supercharged Alcohol Funny Car by an amazing six-hundredths of a second (Bellemeur's own NHRA world record of 5.352) and over seven mph, (Annie Whiteley's 276.18). While the car was not required to be NHRA legal during testing, it was, nonetheless, the most jaw-dropping performance yet of 2025.

The internet lit up with lots of naysayers questioning the validity of the pass. Some claiming that they weren't running NHRA specs, hadn't passed tech, etc. All of that is sheer B.S. as the team holds themselves to a very high standard as straight up racers that would never cut corners or do anything that wasn't 100% legal. The obvious question that the critics would have to answer - and can't - is why would they run so much quicker and faster than anyone in the history of the class when they obviously know that NHRA will very quickly be making some major rules changes for the class if that pass is repeated at the "Baby Gators" or Gatornationals next month.

It has been posited that the run was made in an attempt to show NHRA that letting A/Funny Cars run in the TA/FC class is like opening Pandora's Box and that nothing good can come of it. If that actually is the case, it's a very expensive way for the "Killer B's" to get the A/FC option struck from the rulebook.... but it is a remote possibility. There are still only a very small handful of racers running the injected nitro option, and before Bellemeur's jaw-dropping effort, Mick "The Real Deal" Steele" has been the most successful, with some 5.40's, including a best of 5.459 in 2023. That's a long way behind Bellemeur's seemingly "out of the box" test pass at Gainesville.

Stay tuned for more developments and internet debates, from the racers and the NHRA. It could be quite an interesting season for th Top Alcohol Funny Car class.

Here's a link to the Drag Illustrated report on the run.

And another link to the video of the run.

LATE Update: Here's the link to a full story about the car on Crew Chief Daily from Drag Illustrated.