Top Fuel drag racing isn’t for the faint of heart, as it requires, every now and then, drifting an 8000 HP car.
If you don’t know by now, Top Fuel dragsters are the quickest accelerating vehicles on the face of the earth, finishing 1,000 feet (305 m) runs in 3.7 seconds at speeds of 335 mph (539 km/h).
The energy that these incredible machines can generate measures ~3.2 on the Richter scale, as their launch acceleration approaches 8Gs. And then there’s Doug Kalitta, an American racing driver from Ypsilanti, Michigan, who managed to slide one on Sunday in the NHRA Kansas Nationals – right before securing his third consecutive Top Fuel victory.
In other words, besides sliding a dragster, Kalitta also crossed the finish line before his competitor Antron Brown, crossing the finish line in 5.452 seconds at 384 km/h (238.85 mph)
“It’s a seat of your pants kind of deal and you try to stay off the centerline and not hit the wall. There is a limit. I think I had it more sideways than I’ve ever had a Top Fuel car before. It finally straightened out and we were fortunate to get the win”, Kalitta said.
The result can be seen in this beautifully recorded, slow-motion footage, which perfectly depicts the dragster’s mechanical beauty. That said, Doug Kalitta might just have invented the most hardcore motorsport discipline of them all: Top Fuel Dragster Drift.