Multi-time European drag racing champion Ida Zetterström bowed out early on Sunday at the Pep Boys NHRA Nationals after she was eliminated in the opening round of competition for the first time in her NHRA career. The 2023 FIA Top Fuel champ clocked the second-quickest run of the first round aboard her Jon Schaffer-tuned JCM/VP Racing Fuels/Edelbrock/COMP Cams/Dodge Top Fuel dragster, but it wasn’t enough to outpace Shawn Langdon, whose starting line advantage allowed him to propel through the finish line beams first and advance into round two.
Zetterström qualified 12th out of 19 Top Fuel dragsters vying for a shot in the Sunday show at Maple Grove Raceway in Reading, Pennsylvania. The Swedish speedster opened the weekend with a tire-smoking run in the first qualifying session but quickly rebounded. On Friday night, Zetterström took her 11,000-horsepower rail on a 3.779-second at 329.10 mph ride to reset her career-best speed. She closed out qualifying on Saturday by powering her machine straight down the groove in 3.771 seconds in Q4, which held up to be the third-quickest pass of the session.
While several teams struggled to make it down the track on Sunday morning, the Zetterström/Schaffer duo had no problem mastering the Maple Grove Raceway surface. Zetterström was out of the gate with an .089 reaction time and powered her JCM Racing-fielded entry to the finish line stripe in 3.745 seconds, resetting her career-best E.T. in the process, but Langdon’s holeshot advantage (.059) was enough of a boost to set off the scoreboard win lights in his lane and advance despite running a slower 3.753 E.T.
“I’ve got a lot of confidence in my team,” said the Rookie of the Year candidate, who recorded a semifinal and quarterfinal finish in her first two NHRA appearances. “We’re basically treating every pass as a test pass. We’re changing things, we’re working in the right direction. Obviously, we’re not out here chasing a championship, we’re out here to find consistency and be ready to chase a championship next year, but if we can spoil someone’s game, we’re definitely up for that. We picked up a point in the last qualifying session by being third-low and ran second-quickest of the first round today. We had a really tough competitor in Shawn Langdon. We’ve been changing some stuff in the car, which has made some things different for me as a driver, reaction time being one of them. I was just starting to feel like I’m coming back into it right now and building up that confidence. Obviously, this was a reaction time that I would have liked to be better and I would have liked to be on the winning side of this run but I’m starting to feel more and more confident. I know what our team is capable of. For me as a driver, I’m getting more comfortable with the changes we’re making, and I feel like by the end of this season, we should have a really good combination. Looking at our numbers from today is indicative of that.”
The JCM/VP Racing Fuels/Edelbrock/COMP Cams/Dodge team will head south to zMAX Dragway in Concord, N.C. for the NHRA Carolina Nationals, September 20 – 22, where Zetterström will continue her quest for NHRA’s 2024 Rookie of the Year honors.
This story was originally published on September 16, 2024. 
