After years of watching the historic NHRA Winternationals from afar, 2023 FIA European Top Fuel champion Ida Zetterström eagerly approached the opportunity to compete in this weekend’s 65th running of the event at In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip. The weekend proved challenging for Zetterström and her JCM Racing Top Fuel team, between a tough qualifying effort and a first-round exit on Sunday morning. Zetterström isn’t dwelling on it, though, choosing instead to look forward to her four-wide debut in Charlotte in one month.
Zetterström, who recorded career-best numbers at last year’s NHRA Finals at Pomona to close out her rookie season, made her best pass of the weekend in the first qualifying session on Friday. In fact, her 3.741-second pass at 334.24 mph wasn’t far off from those career-best numbers set last November. That performance put her No. 8 in the field after Q1, and various traction issues in the following three sessions prevented Zetterström from moving up in the qualifying order.
Zetterström’s No. 12 qualifying position paired her up with the most recent winner on tour, past world champion Shawn Langdon, in the first round of eliminations on Sunday. She made a relatively clean pass, a 3.806 E.T. at 278.40 mph, but it wasn’t quick enough to get around Langdon and his 3.668-second effort.
“I’ve ended up racing against world champions like Doug Kalitta or Langdon, or Justin Ashley, who’s the best leaver in the class, every race day,” Zetterström said. “We want to find some more momentum to qualify higher and also be able to have that consistency going rounds. I think that will build my confidence, too, and that will make me a better driver, so it’s all just a combination of things. And I’m not saying that if we ultimately qualify higher we’re going to have an easier target because no one is easy out here.”
Zetterström and the JCM Racing Top Fuel team will have a one-month break from competition, as their current plans have them running 10 of the 20 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series events. That doesn’t mean they’ll rest, though. Zetterström, who moved from the Aland Islands of Finland to the Indianapolis area to pursue her Top Fuel dreams, is actively seeking funding to add more races to the team’s schedule. She is not scheduled to compete at the next NHRA Mission Foods race, the Four-Wide Nationals, April 11-13, at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
“If we had the funding to go race all the races, that’s absolutely what we want to do, but we know we’re in a situation where we don’t have that funding,” Zetterström said. “At this point, I’m happy that we have a break in the schedule. Obviously, I would be even happier to chase the championship, but we’re going to make a lot of good use out of this time. We have some things we know we want to tackle when it comes to the car. We’re also going to work on some other stuff that might make it more comfortable, basically, for me as a driver in the car. I feel like this has not been an accurate representation of who I am as a driver. I need some new, fresh momentum going into Charlotte. Charlotte will be a four-wide race, so that will be a brand-new thing for me. I think it might be good to get this time off for us to regroup and come back and show what we can actually do.”
Zetterström will return to the NHRA Mission Foods Series tour April 25-27 at the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals at zMAX Dragway in Concord, N.C.
This story was originally published on March 31, 2025. 
