Like his older brother, 2016 DI 30 Under 30 honoree Doug Foley Jr., Joe Foley was born into drag racing. And it wasn’t just the family hobby. It was the family business. The brothers’ father, Doug Foley, competed in IHRA and NHRA Top Fuel during their childhood while also building Doug Foley’s Drag Racing School. Joe learned how to race from an early age, and he later shared those skills with the school’s participants. Today, he’s using those skills to take home big checks on the big-money bracket racing scene.
[Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in DI #191, the 30 Under 30 Issue, in November / December of 2024.]
Foley was initially more interested in baseball and basketball, but when his older brother raced his Jr. Dragster, he eventually decided to try drag racing too. From age nine to his final Eastern Conference Finals at Bristol at 16, Foley raced Jr. Dragsters alongside his brother.
“With Dad’s Top Fuel schedule and the schools, we didn’t get to race every weekend like a lot of the other kids did,” Foley, now 26, remembers. “He had somebody go with us to a lot of the races to make sure we were running fine, and he made it a point in ’09 to let us run a full season at Atco. With that being the first full season making every race, I was able to win the championship.”
It was during those Jr. Dragster days that Foley would join his family on the road during the summers, taking the drag racing school to dozens of tracks across the country. He first watched from the racetrack playground, but he gradually became one of the instructors and occasionally drove one of the school’s two-seater dragsters after he started racing a Super Comp dragster. Through years with the racing school, which was later renamed the Pure Speed Drag Racing Experience, Foley witness hundreds of people experience drag racing for the first time.
“It’s awesome seeing people wanting to come into what you consider your world,” says Foley, who now helps out on his father’s NHRA Top Fuel team. “I’ve spent my whole life around these cars, and getting to share that with somebody that knows nothing about any of it is really a fun experience. I spent a lot of time licensing Jr. Dragster students, so that was cool knowing you’re bringing somebody into a new sport that could be here for 40, 50, 60 years to come.”
Foley earned his Super Comp license with the school at 16, and he’s since developed quite a reputation in the bracket racing world, especially in the footbrake niche. He learned how to footbrake driving Dave Stebner’s car with advice from Stebner and longtime friend Ernie Humes. Foley earned a $10K win at the 2022 BTE Labor Day $250K at Bristol, as well as three consecutive Top E.T. track championships in his dragster at Darlington Dragway. He doubled up this year, also winning the Footbrake track championship in Adam Keir’s truck.
Foley’s biggest win so far came this summer when he won the TB Promotions $250K at U.S. 131 Motorsports Park in Martin, Michigan. He wasn’t even sure he was going to the race, and when Keir’s truck suffered damage in a wheelstand early in the weekend, Foley almost didn’t get on his flight for Michigan. But Meighan Bonnett and fiancé J.P. Schuster offered up Bonnett’s American dragster, putting Foley back in the race. He ended up reaching the final round of the 407-entry race, where he defeated Drew Buchner.
“When I turned on the last win light, it definitely took me about the entire shutdown to really comprehend the fact that I was able to do it,” Foley says. “I’ve always dreamed of something like that. Being a bracket racer my whole life, it was a dream to race with the guys I was racing with, let alone win something that big. The fact that I was able to get that big win with a lot of my friends and my brother being there was definitely a nice feeling.”
Foley, whose next major goal is a win at the Million Dollar Drag Race, credits his parents, Doug and Shelagh, as well as older brother “Two-Seater Doug,” for supporting his racing efforts and providing guidance and inspiration.
“Dad at times thinks I’m crazy when I’m going from track to track to track nonstop, but I think the seat time and all that pays off, and I think he sees that now,” Foley says. “My parents have always been very supportive and helpful.
“My brother has won some big stuff,” Foley continues. “He won a $300 grander and stuff like that when I was younger, and I looked up to that as, ‘I want to do that. I want to be the guy that people look at like, man, that was awesome.’ So, I always kind of looked up to him in that way.”
Foley has accomplished a lot in a short time, but he’s just getting started.
“This has been an amazing year for me,” he says. “Besides the $250K, I’ve won quite a few races and made quite a few splits in $50Ks and stuff like that. The goal is just to stay competitive, keep racing, and hopefully make some money along the way.”
This story was originally published on February 7, 2025. 
