Swedish Top Fuel Drag Racer Ida Zetterström Reflects on Moving to America

Courtesy NHRAThere may be some of you who are surprised to hear that the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) oversees a drag racing series along with more well-known motorsports like Formula One and the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Perhaps even more surprising than the existence of the European Drag Racing Championship is that the 2023 Top Fuel Champion started in motorcycles, and is now in Indiana, chasing her dragster dreams in the land where drag racing was born. Courtesy NHRAIda Zetterström came to the U.S. after winning the 2023 FIA Top Fuel championship. Funding presented challenges towards running a full season in the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) series, but she was able to make a career-best pass, and impress the fans enough to win the National Dragster vote for ‘Best New Talent.’ Zetterström also wrote about her rookie experience for Autoweek. While Zetterström hasn’t yet managed to secure a full-time ride, she hasn’t wasted her time in the states, representing NHRA drag racing at other sporting events like NASCAR, speaking at a women-in-sports business summit, taking a turn on the reporting side from the NHRA announcers’ booth, and volunteering at a local animal rescue. (We traded pet photos and plans for puppy yoga via text after the interview).Ida Zetterstrom We also spoke with Zetterström about her experiences switching to the slightly quicker cars and certainly more crowded NHRA schedule, and what she thinks makes drag racing a slept-on opportunity for companies looking for new markets.

Car and Driver: Tell me about drag racing in Europe. Is it popular over there? What prompted you to come to NHRA in America?Ida Zetterström: The racing in Europe is fantastic. The crowds are a lot bigger than many people probably realize. We could easily have 30,000 to 60,000 people in the grandstands, even more than that at some events. There’s big, big love for drag racing in Europe. But NHRA is the pinnacle of drag racing. This is where it is the most competitors are, the most teams, the fastest ETs, the fastest miles per hour. And this is where the best of the best is, the world’s best drivers and crew chiefs.How did you get started with racing in the first place?I started racing when I was eight years old, over in Sweden, and I raced in Scandinavia throughout my junior years. When I was 16 years old, I moved up to a class that’s called Super Comp and then worked my way through the ranks and raced bikes, drag bikes, for seven years. That is where I won my first championships. I won two championships in Super Street Bike, which is one of the most competitive classes over in Europe, not just for bikes, but overall in drag racing. It is a pro class and really high-level racing. And I was the first woman to ever win it and the youngest to ever win a championship in that class. Courtesy NHRA|ABCDid that give you the confidence to move into Top Fuel?It was a really great stepping stone. People might not think it’s the correct way to start on two wheels and then switch over to four wheels, but I didn’t have the money needed to race Top Fuel, and I could afford to race in one of the highest classes in Europe if I rode the motorcycles. I won my first championship in 2019, backed it up in 2020, and then in ’20 I got my license to run Top Fuel. And after that, I ran two full seasons. I ran a little bit in 2021, but in 2022 and 2023, I was chasing a championship in Top Fuel in Europe, and we were third in the championship in 2022, and we won in 2023.Did you have plans back then to come to NHRA?Even before that, I was already working hard at making it over to NHRA. It’s ultimately where, if you want to be running with the best in the world, this is where it’s at. Ida ZetterstromWhat are some of the challenges you’ve faced getting situated here in America?NHRA has a 20-race schedule. I moved over in February 2024, and we were hard at work building our team, so I was only ready for the final eight races of the season. I would call us a low-budget team at the moment; we only have one trailer. Most NHRA race teams have two, so we had to equip that trailer to be able to hold everything we need with a backup car and a main car, and all the spare parts, spare engines, clutch grinder, and everything we need to go for a full race weekend.So you started late and had to catch up?And we were doing so with a limited team. We had three full-time guys and me. My crew chief, John Schaffer, carried that whole project and made sure everything was ready to go. It was a lot of late, late nights and a lot of weekends. So, yeah, when we debuted, we did the last eight races last year with the hopes of racing a full season for 2025, but this year we weren’t able to secure the funding needed to run a full season.Aside from not being able to gather enough points for a championship, are there other difficulties in running part-time?The hard part is that when you are a team that doesn’t race all the races, you don’t get as many chances at the tracks as the other teams do. You don’t get as much data, you don’t get as much seat time. And it is a big challenge. I do feel like we’ve done a good job of qualifying at every race we’ve been to since we started last year. We have been able to go rounds against big names in the sport, and we have qualified in the top half. Courtesy NHRA|ABCAre the cars very different here than in the European series?The big difference is that I was racing an open cockpit car, and a canopy car is very different. You don’t hear the same way. You can’t hear the other car. It’s also less vision, and when you’ve been running something for several years and you get used to it, it’s always a little bit of a challenge to learn something new. I don’t think it held me back or anything. The other thing that is still new to me is a lot of the tracks. I had never raced on any of the NHRA tracks before I came here. It isn’t until you’re in the car and you feel how the car is acting on those tracks that you actually know how the car will behave on that track compared to another track. When I’m able to run a full season, which hopefully is next year, I will have all of those experiences that I can really benefit from.What’s your sponsor pitch?Oh, the open pit is something that is unmatched in other sports. A sponsor can bring employees or potential new customers trackside and sit right next to our cars while having a catered lunch while we’re working on the cars. And the fans actually get up close and personal with the drivers and the teams during race day, you know, they can stand there, they watch me mix the fuel, they watch me fuel the car. I can take a photo with the kids who come up, the little girls who come with their hero cards to be signed. Speaking of fans who are little girls, NHRA has the best ratio of women racing and involved in the crews and pits of any motorsport. Why do you think NHRA has historically been so friendly to female involvement?It’s so natural in NHRA. It doesn’t stand out the same way as it does in other motorsports. I started when I was eight, and we never separated girls and boys. It’s not the girls’ class or the boys’ class. So we never made a big deal about it. And when I raced, we were about 50/50 girls and guys.Also, it’s such a family sport. A lot of people, if their wife is not racing, which, I mean, a lot of times they are, but if they’re not, they’re the ones who help load the car up before you leave, wrench in the pit, or make sure that everybody has food. Everybody’s so included that I don’t think it stands out the same way as it does in some other sports. And of course, the cars don’t know any difference. I’ve never worked with a team that found it strange that the driver was female.Ida ZetterstromDo you think that could be appealing to sponsors? Absolutely. We have stats on it about how much of our audience is female. We’re winning races and we’re kicking ass. And some other sports, they might not like it as much, but our fans really love it. And I think that’s something that potential sponsors can really benefit from, that here is somewhere where they can make a statement of partnering with girls or women who are really good at what they do and have such a supportive fan base for them doing it.All right, last question: What’s the quickest pass you’ve ever made, and what is the fastest you’ve ever run?3.73. 3.73 seconds at 334 mph. That’s a speedy Swede.
Source: caranddriver.com