Torco’s CompetitionPlus.com has learned that former NHRA POWERade Funny

Car driver and multi-time national event winner Al Hofmann died today

from a massive heart attack while at his Eustis, Florida home. 

Torco’s CompetitionPlus.com has learned that former NHRA POWERade Funny

Car driver and multi-time national event winner Al Hofmann died today

from a massive heart attack while at his Eustis, Florida home. He was 60.

Hofmann, who won 15 times in 32 final-round

appearances, was a regular in the NHRA top 10 from 1991, when he

finished seventh, through 1996, highlighted by a five-win 1995 campaign

in which he finished second in the standings to Force. He finished

third in 1992 and 1994 and fourth in 1993 and 1996.

Hofmann suffered a major crash at the 1997

Gatornationals that sidelined him for much of the season, but he

returned near season’s end and won in Dallas

and ultimately finished 13th in the standings. He returned to the top

10 in 1998 with a ninth-place finish and scored his last tour victory

in Memphis that year. He finished 13th in 1999 and 2000. His last final-round appearance was at the 2001 event in Bristol, and he finished the year 16th. He competed in just three races in 2002.

In addition to his national event victories, Hofmann

won the Winston Invitational in 1991 and 1993 and the Budweiser

Shootout in 1992, 1994, and 1995.

Hofmann was the second Funny Car driver to exceed

300 mph. He recorded a run of 301.10 mph Feb, 19, 1994, in Phoenix to

become the 13th member – and only one of two Funny Car drivers – of the

Slick 50 300-mph Club.