Great Balls of Fire: Texas Drag Racing

A Top Fuel dragster launches from the starting line with a fiery burst at Houston Raceway Park during the NHRA Spring Nationals in Baytown.
Two roaring, missile-like machines streak down a 1,320-foot strip of pavement—side by side, just a few feet apart—in a quarter-mile acceleration test of pure power. Less than a minute later another pair launches from a standing start, and rockets down the same course. Slick professional teams buzz with activity alongside shoestring mom-and-pop operations. Everyone feels the need for speed. Thundering engines, one winner, one loser, no whining—that’s professional drag racing in Texas.

Dallas native and Texas A&M graduate Brandon Bernstein’s sleek, pointy Top Fuel dragster is 25 feet long, weighs more than 2,000 pounds, and is bright red with his primary sponsor’s Budweiser logo prominently displayed. Brandon’s job is to hang onto that nitromethane-fueled rocket, keep it in a straight line, and beat whoever is in the opposing lane to the finish. He says, “I just loved it from the second that I started. Everybody loves the speed of these cars. They love to come to the track and watch us go 330-plus [mph].”

Texas hosts two major National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) drag races every year, plus hundreds of smaller events at tracks all over the Lone Star State. The Spring Nationals in March are a seagull’s flight from the Gulf of Mexico at Houston Raceway Park in Baytown, and the Fall Nationals in September blast across rolling farmland south of Dallas, at the Texas Motorplex in Ennis. Both are televised on ESPN2, but racers insist that there is no substitute for seeing the flaming action in person.

“It’s a sensory overload,” says Brandon. “Your eyes are going to water, your ears are going to pound, your body’s gonna literally shake, but it’s going to be the biggest adrenaline rush you’ve ever experienced. TV does not do it justice; you have to physically be here. Once you get people here, they’re hooked for life.”

See the full article in the March 2008 issue.

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