Ida Zetterström wasn’t supposed to be in St. Louis. But when team owner Joe Maynard made a midweek decision to add World Wide Technology Raceway to JCM Racing’s calendar, the Swedish driver treated the extra chance like the opportunity of a lifetime.
From a No. 14 starting spot, Zetterström raced her way into her first NHRA Top Fuel final round. She left first on every opponent before bowing out to Doug Kalitta, capping a weekend that reinforced her determination to stay relevant in a part-time campaign.
The Cinderella-like run came just as her NHRA career seemed in need of a breakthrough. Entering the weekend, she had only four round wins in a year and a half of limited appearances.
Zetterström made the most of the sudden opening, starting with a marquee matchup against regular-season champion Tony Stewart. She drilled the tree with a perfect .000 reaction time, then hung on for the win even as her dragster pushed out a head gasket before the finish.
Momentum carried into round two, where she again delivered on the starting line and backed it up with a 3.802-second run at 326.87 mph to defeat Kyle Wurtzel. In the semifinals, she left on four-time champion Antron Brown and nursed the car across the finish line with a slowing 3.925 at 292.08 mph.
“We needed this badly,” Zetterström said after the semifinal win. “There’s nothing to say, we were struggling. We tested, and Joe said we were running St. Louis, for our partners, we wanted to show that we can be in these races with a car that’s running. This team has done a wonderful job on this car.”
The final round paired Zetterström, the 2023 FIA European Top Fuel champion, with Kalitta, the 2023 NHRA Top Fuel titleholder. Once again, she reacted first but hazed the tires and couldn’t keep pace.
“We gave it our all and put up a good fight,” Zetterström said. “Obviously, we were trying to go a little faster so we could try to beat Doug. It’s very frustrating when you’re in the car and you see your opponent pulling away. I’m such a bad loser so I was sad when I got to the top end, but overall, really proud of all that this team has accomplished this weekend. We’ve been talking about how we’ve had issues and we’re trying to figure this program out, and I feel like we’ve shown this weekend that when our car is running the way it should, we can be a contender out here and run with anyone. That’s a big, fat exclamation point to anyone that doubts us.”
Her qualifying effort gave no hint of what was to come. She posted a 3.788-second run at 328.78 mph Friday evening, then slipped to 14th after tire smoke on the final attempt. Yet when Sunday arrived, she used sharp reflexes and grit to flip her underdog role into a storyline that grabbed the spotlight.
“I’m so thankful to Joe and PJ Maynard for deciding to add this race to our schedule at the last minute,” she said. “Joe saw the progress we were making the last time we tested, and he wanted us out here to prove that in competition, and I’m really happy he did.”
For Zetterström, the run was more than a runner-up finish. It was validation that the determination she has carried from European championships to an uncertain NHRA schedule still has a place in drag racing’s top tier.
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She is now aiming to secure the sponsorship needed for a full-time 2026 campaign. Until then, every chance to race is treated as if it might be her last.
“Sometimes the last-minute plans turn out to be the ones you remember forever,” Zetterström said.
