Two things are apparent when it comes to the new Bartone Brothers A/Fuel Funny Car. (A) It is fast. (B) If they are sandbagging, they have done a terrible job of it.
Driver Sean Bellemeur will make a run for his fifth championship, and he’s already ruffled feathers in the category, posting unofficially the best run in the class, a 5.288 second elapsed time at 283.49 miles per hour at Gainesville Raceway in Gainesville, Fla.
The run exceeded the best injected Funny Car numbers set by Mick Steele at 5.45 at 270 mph. It annihilated the best performances by any supercharged alcohol Funny Car by .06 of a second. Ironically, a 5.352 was a record established by the Bartone team with Bellemeur. The fastest a Top Alcohol Funny Car has gone up to this point is 276.18 by Annie Whiteley.
To think, Bellemeur won the championship in 2024 by scoring an incredible 850 points.
“There are a couple of reasons for building the Injected Nitro package in Top Alcohol Funny Car,” Bellemeur said. “The first is Steve Boggs. He has decades of experience tuning this combination, so to apply it to a Funny Car is an exciting challenge for him and a potential performance advantage. At 81 years old, it’s really cool to see him excited about this project. The second reason is simply performance. Tony has assembled a race team with the expectation of winning, and we need to at least try this combination to see if there is an advantage.
“NHRA’s rules will only allow us to switch combinations so many times so we’re going to build a game plan after testing and see what will give us the best chance for winning. It’s hard to walk away from the alcohol car that we were so successful with over the past couple of seasons so it’s sitting there ready to go if needed.”
Bellemeur will have to become acclimated to two different driving styles, but this shouldn’t be an issue considering he’s earned 43 national event victories to go along with 27 regional wins.
“The Injected Nitro package will present some new challenges in the driver’s seat because of the different routine that is needed, and I’m excited for that this season,” he continued. “However, there’s nothing quite like revving up a blown alcohol engine, dumping the clutch, banging a gear at 10,000 RPM, and then doing it again. Either way, I’m excited to get back to work with the team and venturing through this new combination.
Tony Bartone, team owner, highlighted the importance of adapting to new challenges. “The team we have assembled gives us the best opportunity to roll out this new package,” Bartone said. “I hope it will ‘inject’ some more excitement into the category.”
The Bartone Brothers injected-nitro program presents the best chance of an A/Fuel Funny car domination since 1998 when IHRA legalized the combination for Scott Weiss. It didn’t win the championship but delivered enough promise that it was outlawed in 1999.
