Santa Pod Raceway’s Easter weekend Festival of Power, scheduled for this weekend, will see 55 women and girls among the 312 drivers and riders entered. This notable gender representation in drag racing sets it apart from other motorsports, which often struggle to attract female participants.
Headlining the event is a Top Fuel Dragster match race featuring Sweden’s Susanne Callin and Britain’s Liam Jones. This competition serves as a prelude to the FIA European Championship, which begins in May.
Callin, Europe’s first 300 mph teenager, returned to racing in 2019 after a 14-year hiatus. Her daughters are moving up from the Junior Dragster ranks this season, all competing under the Slick Tricks Racing banner at Santa Pod.
“First, when I read the “battle of the sexes” so was I like, ‘Oh no, what is this, as I will be doing no more or less battling than normal,” Callin said. “The text didn’t make the distinction the headline suggested, but I do think that the key word here is that it is normal. I do not have a female vs male aspect. The thought doesn’t even cross my mind of -oh, it will be Liam, a man, in the other lane any more than -oh wow, it is Jndia, another woman, in the other lane at Main Event, for example.
“Of course, I’ll eye them up and fear different things about every other racer, like their driving capabilities or race car performance, but none that have to do with their gender.
“I have raced in a male-dominated field almost all of my life, and it’s never been a big thing for me. It has always been normal and totally accepted. I have never been made to feel different or that I don’t belong or inferior in any way.”
Callin is happy to see Jones back in the mix of European Top Fuel if only to outrun him like she would any male or female drag racer.
Jones, a leading Top Fuel racer in Britain for the past decade, also returns after a break, driving a car adorned with the livery of Bro Joe, a new coffee brand. He and his Norwegian partner, Maja Udtian, are both 3-second, 300 mph Top Fuel racers and former rivals, with Udtian’s best performance slightly edging Jones’s.
“One of the greatest things drag racing has achieved is total equality throughout,” Jones said. “When you consider it’s a real rough, tough, old-school sport, I think that’s an incredible accolade. And it hasn’t been done by pushing political correctness down people’s throats; it’s been done by men and women from all walks of life spending huge amounts of time, effort, and money on something they love and proving that it doesn’t matter what gender you are, it’s about having the minerals to tear up that drag strip with some serious amounts of horsepower.
“And how do we compare to other, more male-dominated motorsport disciplines? Well, I’d say a lot of us drag racers couldn’t do what they do, but a lot of them wouldn’t dare do what we do…..”
In contrast, the opening round of the Funny Car Cup is an all-male affair. Despite its name, “Funny Car” refers to high-powered machines that share 10,000-horsepower engines with Top Fuel cars, compacted into short wheelbases beneath lightweight bodies.
Texan Terry Haddock, who tuned a Swedish driver to the continent’s first 300 mph Funny Car speed last year, will both drive and tune a new British-owned Swedish car at the event. His fellow Texan, John Hale, drives a colorful vehicle known as One Bad Texan, while Steve Ashdown, the 2022 Funny Car Cup champion, represents Britain in The Undertaker.
Newcomer Dale Leeks, a British dragbiker with an American championship from the Xtreme Dragbike Association’s Pro Xtreme division, will make his Funny Car debut.
The Festival of Power will also feature the highly anticipated Jet Car Challenge and Pro Mods, kicking off the 2025 Motorsport UK British Drag Racing Championship. The event offers complete UK national championship rounds for cars and motorcycles, with free paddock access for fans to experience the pitside action up close.
