(Photos by Wes Allison) – When it comes to professional level drag racing, you typically have two camps of people. Those that favor funny cars and those that favor top fuel dragsters. It’s easy to understand that fans love ’em all but everyone has favorites, right? The physics of a top fuel dragster are completely different than a nitro funny car and the driving style is very different as well. Hell, even the way the men and women stage the cars is way different than in funny car.

Top fuel is far more a class of subtle movements from the staging process to actually driving the cars. In talking to Antron Brown he has always said that in a top fuel car, “big” steering inputs are made early and then you basically steer the car with less and less and less movement as you head down the course. With their very long chassis, the drivers have to be careful staging as to not cause any heaving, bouncing, etc in the process as it can cause the tires to unload at the step of the throttle.

Top Fuel dragsters my own the elapsed time record over the funny cars but the speed still belongs to the side with bodies draped over their chassis. Perhaps that’s what keeps this eternal debate alive!

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