The injected nitro combination is not new to NHRA, which legalized the combination again two years ago to stimulate participation in the Top Alcohol Funny Car division. The move was largely uncontroversial as teams started to sort out the combination. However, when the defending Top Alcohol Funny Car world champion, Sean Bellemeur, announced that he and the Bartone Brothers were switching over from the blown-alcohol combination, is when “it” hit the fan.
The injected-nitro inclusion is only the tip of the iceberg for the class, which has seen participation wane extensively over the last decade. Next season, NHRA will introduce another variable, reduced nitro percentage with a supercharger for both the Funny Car and Dragster portions of the Top Alcohol divisions.
While Mick Steele was the primary injected-nitro car in 2023 and 2024, there were three at the NHRA Gatornationals this season. It was Bellemeur’s preseason announcement that he and the Bartone Brothers would be introducing their injected-nitro combination for this season. This revelation sparked a flurry of conversation, but when Bellemeur achieved a 5.288-second elapsed time at 283.49 miles per hour, it drew out the pitchforks and torches.
Even when Bellemeur and tuner Steve Boggs reeled off a perfect claim season last year, they got reluctant high-fives from the competition. Their counterparts were not as enthused with the preseason success.
“It’s funny because I try to be friendly with everybody and to this day I do,” said Bellemeur, who is now third in the Top Alcohol Funny Car point standings. “I try to have a good time. We all do this because we love it. I understand the frustrations of some of the other racers out there, but I have, in a very short period here in 2025, had people who had come by, hang out with us after the races that won’t even hardly look at me anymore, and the same with my teammates, and it’s sad.
“I miss the good old camaraderie days. I know there’s a lot of people upset. And the thing is with this injected nitro car, and the other injected nitro guys, Mick Steele and the others they’re facing this too, it’s going to take a while to get this thing ironed out.”
Bellemeur has only made three national and two divisional claims this year. He’s won two of three nationals and both of the divisionals.
“Everybody went crazy after we ran Gainesville in some of the best conditions we’ll ever see,” Bellemeur said. “I feel like that was a little short-sighted of them. Conditions that we may not see again in five years, and everybody’s jumping to conclusions based on that. So I’ve learned a little bit about some people that I didn’t realize that’s how they actually felt. And you know what? My door’s always open; if people want to come to have a beer with me after the races are over, that’s great. But you know what? Just because we’re doing something that NHRA allows and we’re doing well at it. Sorry if that pisses you off.”
One person not ticked off is Maddy Gordon, who stands second in the championship points behind the supercharged alcohol combination of Annie Whiteley.
“We knew that Bellemeur was going to go out there and run fast,” said Gordon, who finished second to Bellemeur in her rookie season. “Everybody knew that. That’s the way the rules were set up, and that’s the way NHRA set it up to begin with. When he went out there and ran the .28, we weren’t surprised how the rules were set up, and then we knew NHRA was going to back him down, which they did. I’m excited to see how they run, how fast they’re going to run, and what NHRA is going to do. We’re happy for it. We need it in our class.”
What Gordon is not excited to see is the negativity that has manifested itself in the class.
“There’s been a lot of negativity, no doubt about it,” she continued. “My dad has been saying it, and he’s trying to preach to everybody, just trust NHRA. We trust NHRA. It’s not perfect yet, but how could it be perfect? We have a different blower overdrive than alcohol dragster does, so they don’t have a baseline of where to go.
“We trust NHRA, we know they’ll make it right, and we are excited to have them in the class.”
The NHRA has made multiple adjustments to the combination, which, outside of Bellemeur, hasn’t warranted an adjustment.
“NHRA was fighting an uphill battle,” Bellemeur said. “I actually, in a way, feel bad for NHRA because the rules package that they had initially come out with, they were facing off of a couple of cars that didn’t run the same combination that we are running today. So NHRA was kind of in this push-pull fight with the combination itself.
“Mick Steele, some guys went out and ran pretty good with the combination, but it was still, it really, it wasn’t the combination for what an injected nitro car really needs. Anytime you have something new, there’s going to need to be some adjustments; we all know that. So after the first couple of weekends of running the car, they hit us pretty good with a reduction nitro percentage.”
Jonnie Lindberg, once an iconic Top Alcohol Funny Car racer and now a tuner for Mission Foods Series Funny Car racer Paul Lee at the time of the injected-nitro vs supercharged alcohol combination controversy, said he’d likely have chosen the blown alcohol. He won two NHRA world championships during his time racing in the class, as well as one in the FIA (Europe) series.
“I think it’s kind of cool,” Lindberg said of the multiple options for Top Alcohol Funny Car. “First, I was against it because I thought Alcohol Funny Car was the last alcohol class that we had the same rules. But I understand what [NHRA’s] trying to do because it needs more cars, and I think the injected stuff, it’s going to keep the cost down because even buying a supercharger nowadays for Alcohol Funny Car is like over $20K, so I understand it. It’s going to take a while [for parity]. But I think the alcohol dragster class, they’re pretty even, the blown cars and the injected cars. So we could get to that. Maybe we see more cars in a class, and we need it.”
Second-generation drag racer Will Martin was one of those drivers who had invested heavily in his combination for this season. However, after witnessing the advancements of the injected-nitro combination, he put his team up for sale and refused to give insight as to whether he would return or not.
“I think Top Alcohol [Funny Car] has been lost for a long time, and it’s a class that’s been dying on the vine,” Martin said. “The legends have retired, and no one’s backfilled it. I and Bob McCosh are the only two people in the country over the last six years that built blown alcohol screw-charger cars, and that didn’t really get us a whole lot.”
One thing that Martin is adamant about is the Bartone Brothers team is the gold standard for the class.
“It’s just one of those things that they have more laps than anybody else in the class,” Martin said. “They have more funding than anybody else in the class, and so, therefore, they’re going to be the team to always be looking after. That being said, while they say they want to do the right things by the class and they don’t want to see the alcohol cars go by the wayside, while they weren’t the first with the A/Fuel combination, they showed what it could do in preseason testing, which has definitely affected the car count.”
While the acceptance of the A/Fuel combination didn’t inspire the growth the NHRA was looking for, the recent announcement of a third combination —essentially a supercharged nitro combination with overdrive and percentage mimicking the late 1980s —has the community buzzing as well.
NHRA believes this 2026 addition aims to provide a more accessible progression for teams aspiring to move up to Top Fuel and Funny Car classes in the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series.
Additionally, this newest addition, according to NHRA and its sponsor, provides a more reasonable pathway to professional drag racing. The original intent of the Pro Comp division, which later split into two Top Alcohol divisions, was to serve as a training ground for fuel racers.
Del Worsham, a two-time nitro champion, initiated this change and tested the new combination, achieving competitive performance levels comparable to those of current Top Alcohol Funny Cars. The regulations for the nitro combination align closely with those for Top Fuel, including restrictions on nitromethane content to 85% and prohibitions on artificial fuel cooling and heating. Technical specifications, such as supercharger ratios and clutch configurations, are specified to maintain parity.
Worsham emphasized the need for a pathway for teams transitioning from alcohol classes to nitro classes, citing financial burdens and the inability to repurpose parts as significant obstacles. This new option is designed to attract more teams to the sport, promoting skill development and familiarity with the technology and components required for higher-level competition. The overarching goal is to create a more accessible entry point into big-show drag racing, fostering a new generation of competitors.
“We just don’t have enough teams coming up through the alcohol ranks, which is how my dad and I and [Richard] Hartman and Dale Armstrong all got started,” said Worsham. “When we went from Top Alcohol Funny Car to AA/Funny Car back in the late 1980s, we were able to use almost everything we owned. When we bought stuff — blocks, cranks, heads, blowers — it was all usable. That’s not an option today, so you just don’t have an easy way to transfer people. You spend a quarter million dollars on a Top Alcohol Funny Car, and not one piece of it can be used in a nitro Funny Car, except maybe the trailer.
“With this new option, you’re going to get teams that can and will transfer classes. You’re going to get people who learn how to work on these cars, have all the same parts and all the same tuning abilities, the same command module, the same computers, the same MSD timing graphs, which should create a lot more people who suddenly can do this or want to do this. That was the whole idea.”
Bellemeur, the champion who has dominated both combinations in Top Alcohol Funny Car, believes the Bartone Brothers team could return to the blown alcohol combination and pick up where they left off.
“It seemed like when we had the same combination as everybody else, and we were winning, that was okay, but now it’s not, and that’s okay. If that’s how they truly feel, that’s fine. But like I said, “The Killer B’s are still who we are. We stand proud together.” I’m happy to be friends with anybody out here, but some people just showed a sour side to me, and I’m all done dealing with that.
“That’s Steve and the team. If they could clone Steve Boggs, you could probably sell them for a lot of money. But it was that way in the blown car, too. Many races we went to we had a performance advantage. Steve’s just that good. The guys are that good. Tony provides all the equipment we need all the time. They’re just that good. In my own personal opinion, I still feel like if you were to set our blown alcohol car up against our injected nitro car, I would still choose our blown alcohol car.
“And the reason for that, from a selfish standpoint, excuse me, in that blown car, I could do anything you want to drive in that thing. I could pedal it, I could shift it, I could turn it sideways, I could straighten it out, I could wheelie it. I could do anything you want. I got 20 years of driving one of them, and I was that comfortable with it.”
That begs the question of the driver who started all the fussing. Will the Bartone Brothers team try the new combination in 2026?
“Right now, Steve and Tony have two of the three combinations available for running Top Alcohol Funny Car in 2026. We don’t have any plans on adding a blown nitro combination to the stable, nor do we think it will be beneficial to being successful on Top Alcohol Funny Car. It’ll be interesting to see what NHRA does with the rules for Blown Alcohol Funny Car and Injected Nitro Funny Car moving forward because we are hearing that those rules may change, too.
“For the short term, we are focusing on our next race, which is going to be Norwalk, Ohio. We’ll compete to the best of our abilities at that race, and we won’t worry about the rest of it until it comes our way.”
