WWhen drag racer Ida Zetterström discusses her craft, she describes her racing decisions as a series of calculated if/then statements. This is misleading. The time in which she can change her actions is best measured in tenths of a second. There’s no time to think—it’s all muscle memory honed over decades in the cockpit. A small miscalculation could send her car spinning out of grip on the starting line, or worse.
“When it comes to the actual run, I have to be 100% open [on the gas]”, she says. “I would never have to [re-adjust] the gas pedal or something, because if you do that – first of all, the run is not going to be good. You’re going to never, never lots of fun. Plus the risk of the engine blowing up is super, super high.”
Fortunately, when her wheels lose traction at the start of her second qualifying run at the Carolina Nationals in Charlotte, North Carolina, Zetterström is able to prevent the car from sustaining significant damage. Flirting with this line between success and failure is necessary – the margins of victory in drag racing are ultra-thin.
“It’s a very fine line between smoking the tires, shaking the tires and a perfect run,” says Zetterström. By her estimation, nearly all of her best races flirt with failure before ultimately yielding her fastest runs. Although she’s only four races into her American drag racing career, Zetterström’s observations are based on experience. Originally from Sweden, she’s already accomplished everything she’s ever wanted to in European drag racing.
Calling Zetterström the 2023 European Drag Racing Champion is both accurate and an understatement. She didn’t just narrowly win over her competitors – she dominated them. Zetterström only lost once in an elimination round all season. She also broke the European record for fastest race time. With nothing left to prove in Europe, she headed west earlier this year.
“It’s always been my goal to come here,” she says of the U.S. “I’ve been working toward this for many, many years … This is where the sport is the biggest. The competition is the toughest, the fields are the biggest, the cars are the fastest, the tracks are the best.”
US National Hot Rod Association (NHRA), in which Zetterström competes, organizes championships in four professional racing categories: Top fuel, Funny car, Pro stock And Pro Stock MotorcycleSomewhat confusingly, both Top Fuel and Funny Car share the distinction of being considered the sport’s premier competitions. Top Fuel dragsters look more extreme to the untrained eye – shaped like long arrows with spoilers on the back that tower over most humans, Top Fuel’s dimensions seem ideal for piercing through air resistance. Funny Cars, on the other hand, look a bit like – well, funny-proportioned factory cars. Their contrasting aesthetics, however, belie the fact that beneath their fiberglass bodies, the two categories operate similar machines, both capable of speeds of 330 mph. Ultimately, it comes down to the personal preference of the drivers (and fans) – Zetterström competes in the NHRA’s Top Fuel class (the same class she raced in Europe).
Drag racing’s fan base is undeniably smaller than that of other motorsports. It is tempting, therefore, to assume that the NHRA serves as a sort of “minor league” for drivers with eventual aspirations of racing in NASCAR or Formula 1. This is incorrect. Drag racing is more of an alternative realm that has always been present within the larger world of motorsports. Entering the grounds of the Carolina Nationals feels remarkably like walking into a speakeasy. You leave behind an otherwise anonymous American suburb and enter a subculture that many of the families present have been part of for generations.
This family-first element of drag racing is hard to ignore. While NASCAR races can feel like booze-fueled music festivals, an NHRA event has the wholesome atmosphere of a state fair. This impression is reinforced by the NHRA’s calculated openness—fans are encouraged to get up close and personal with the cars and drivers. Such “pit tours” are available to all ticket holders—similar experiences can cost hundreds of dollars in other racing formats. The sport’s family atmosphere extends to its drivers. Like many of her NHRA peers, Zetterström grew up around motorsports.
“My parents were always in racing,” she says. “My dad didn’t always race himself, but he worked with teams and built engines.” Zetterström herself started racing juniors when she was eight years old. Despite her early start, Zetterström’s journey to Top Fuel racing wasn’t easy. In fact, it required a multi-year detour as a European motorcycle champion, where she was a pioneer for the inclusion of women.
“There has never been a woman who raised the bar, set new records and made waves [in her European motorcycle class] …Everyone was talking about it all the time.” It was a role she didn’t really enjoy, at least not at first.
“It started to get to a point where it bored “It was me,” she says of the focus on her gender. “When I won the championship, I was also the youngest to ever win a championship in that class and that was even cooler to me … They said I was the fastest woman, but I was like, ‘Yeah, but I’m the second fastest [man or woman] ever.’ So for me it was annoying.”
However, the domino effect of her success eventually made Zetterström’s position more favorable.
“When I saw other women coming up to me and saying, ‘Hey, I’m trying to get into the class too. I started riding a bike,’ [then] I thought, ‘Okay, it wasn’t important to mebut it could be important to others.”
She now embraces her position as a role model for other female riders. Zetterström still holds the European women’s record for Super Street Bike drag racing and she wants those who have followed her to break the record.
“It’s been there since 2020,” she says with a hint of disbelief. “It’s four years old now – go get it! That’s what we want, to move it forward.”
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Zetterstrom will be less of a pioneer in NHRA. Top Fuel drag racing has a long history of not only female driversbut female champions. In the 1980s, American Shirley Muldowney became the first driver (male or female) to win three NHRA Top Fuel titles, and Finland’s Anita Mäkelä won three European Top Fuel titles in the 2010s. As a result, Zetterström appreciated the lack of “female first” pressure that came with her transition from motorcycle to Top Fuel racing.
“When I came to Top Fuel, there was So a lot of women who have done it before me. So, it’s like, if they can do it, I can do it,” she says. “For the guys, a lot of them have been drag racing for years maybe, and they to know “There is nothing strange about women here.”
Zetterström believes the high number of female champions at the highest level of the sport is due to Top Fuel’s inclusivity among juniors.
“[Top Fuel] never separates women from men, not even at a young age. When you start racing at eight – in that class you can be from eight to eighteen – men and women always race together. So for me it was never strange to race against a man. It was never strange for the boys to race against a girl. I think the whole mental aspect [such] that you never to make it’s strange.”
The 2024 NHRA Top Fuel circuit is loaded with past champions, both male and female – five fight alongside Zetterström at the Carolina Nationals this weekend. Two-time champion Brittney Force seems especially primed for a rivalry with Zetterström. Among other things, Force, like Zetterström, is the current record holder for her continent in Top Fuel racing. Zetterström laughs at the suggestion that she and Force are destined for enmity.
“It’s very easy to look at a piece of paper and say, ‘She should be rivals, but I think it’s more about mindset,” she says. “You can tell if they like you or not.”
Zetterström’s transatlantic move appears to have broad appeal. Fan numbers don’t lie. She’s only a month into her NHRA career, but the crowd of autograph hunters waiting for Zetterström is second only to Tony Stewart, the NASCAR Hall-of-Famer currently racing his wife’s Top Fuel car while she is on maternity leaveSpeaking to the Guardian, Zetterström’s team brought her a few additional items to sign.
Unfortunately for Zetterström, popularity won’t translate into a championship this year. She didn’t announce her intention to join the NHRA until December 2023, and she’s spent most of 2024 organizing her team and equipment. By the time she started racing in August, her opponents had a 13-race lead in the standings. Should she win an event between now and the end of the season in November, she’ll still be in contention for rookie of the year honors. Zetterström doesn’t have to win it all at once, though. Despite her itinerant motorsports career to date, she says she’s staying with the NHRA.
“The dream has always been to come here and race, but not just come here ‘and race.’ The dream is to come here and win races, and be the best, and win championships,” she says. “My list doesn’t say, ‘Win a championship and retire.’ The plan is much longer than that.”
Even though she’s getting bored with Top Fuel, Zetterström says she could make the transition to Funny Car racing in the NHRA, but that won’t happen anytime soon.
“When I drive Funny Car, it’s because I finished with Top Fuel’, she says, and ‘I’m So I’m not done with Top Fuel yet, I’m just getting started… There’s still so much to do.”