About the Top Dragster Car Class in NHRA Racing

Video Transcript

"TINA STULL: Hi. I'm Tina Stull and I drive the Top Dragster for Interstate Batteries. On behalf of Expert Village, today we're going to talk about the basics of racing. And another class is Top Dragster. It's not contested at the national level, but that's the category that I'm running or the class I'm running this year. I run Super Comp as well as Top Dragsters. The main difference between the two classes is that Top Dragster no longer has that 8.9 second limitation. You can run as fast as you want and they pick a qualified field. So, when you do your qualifying runs, you do qualify by speed. And so if they have a limited class, say 32 cars at a certain event or 64, you're going to be ranked from the fastest time down to the slowest time. And, if there are more cars in the qualified field, you will not contest for the first round, you'll be out before the racing gets started. The nice thing is that these cars can go anywhere from well over 200 miles/hour or down to about 80 and still be able to participate. And this class, as it becomes more popular, is getting more aggressive, the times are coming down. The longer that this class has been competing, the faster the times have been, and so that magical number that allows you to be able participate keeps getting faster and faster. These cars are very competitive; the only major difference between say Super Comp and this class is that now, if you're going over 200 miles/hour, in this class you need to wear a HANS device. It's basically a restraining device for cars that are going over 200. Top Dragster, Top Sportsman, any of these cars that go over 200 miles/hour, they're going to be required a Competition Eliminator, it also has that same requirement for cars that are going faster. This class is a handicapped class and so they are--you're going to tell them what you're planning on running. When you start getting in competition and then the tree will be adjusted to it, just like they do in the other classes. So, the qualifying is based on speed but it's really--the winning is going to be based on consistency. The next one would be Top Sportsman. Top Sportsman is basically the Super Gas where they've taken the restrictions off of it. Top Sportsman is the door car category and you're allowed to run whatever speed you want. There are very few modifications that are not allowed on that one. It's an all out and you're going to be handicapped on that. It's just basically one of the sportsman classes that had the restrictions of the time taken off of it. It's quite similar to Top Dragster."