With your average downtown taxi journey playing out like something from the closing scenes of Back to the Future, life-endangering velocity isn’t exactly rare in the capital. Still, we’d imagine even the most white-knuckled commute must feel like a cosy countryside pootle when you’re Rod Fuller, the drag racing champion who’ll be pushing the speedometer up to 500kph at this weekend’s Yas Drag Racing Festival. Ahead of the fest, we sat down for a chat to find out if those nitro-powered monsters are as terrifying as they sound…
How did you get into drag racing?
I was pretty much born into the sport – my grandfather and my dad were both racers, and my mom and dad met each other at a drag race. I was on the drag strip when I was in the stroller, and learnt about the mechanics growing up. So when it came to getting in the car, it came very naturally to me.
Very few people will ever get the chance to do what you do. Can you describe the experience of driving a top fuel dragster?
In a sense, it’s crazy. You’re strapping yourself in to something that makes 8,000 horsepower; that accelerates faster than an F16 jet and that pulls more Gs than a space shuttle lifting off. I think of drag racers as your modern-day gladiators – these two guys come out, they risk their lives and only one of them leaves a winner. It’s probably the most dangerous form of motorsport there is – there has been a lot of loss of life in the past 10 years.
Ever had any scary moments?
I had a really bad crash in 1996. It knocked me out, I don’t even recall being at that event, I just recall waking up in the helicopter. But everything healed up fine.
Did that experience change the way you think about the sport?
I just accept it as one of the risks. The hardest time for me was in 2006, when I was testing in Florida with one of my best friends in the sport. He got killed right in front of me. It’s not that I was scared for myself, it was just really weird for me to be talking to him, being one of the last people to talk to him and to actually witness it.
Can you remember the very first time you drove a top fuel car?
Oh yeah, very vividly! There’s a standing joke in top fuel, the first time a driver gets in one of these cars, all the crew and other drivers who are watching all bet how long you can stay on the throttle for. And I was like: Man I’m a world champion amateur driver, I’m gonna hold this thing all the way down. So I got in the car, pressed on the throttle and my foot came back up in less than a second. It wasn’t until the sixth or seventh time that I eventually convinced my brain it was all right. It took a good half a season to get comfortable in the car.
Do you ever get used to the noise those things make?
It’s astronomical, isn’t it? There are two types of drivers, those who wear ear protection and those who don’t. And I’m probably the last of the ones who don’t – I’m old school. I don’t have very good hearing because of it, but I want to be able to hear the engine, to hear the pitch of it, to hear if the thing’s about to blow up. The guys who don’t wear ear plugs tend to crash way less than the guys who do.
Have you tried out Formula Rossa at Ferrari World?
Yeah, it’s kinda my secret thing that I’ve been doing, to stay sharp. Since I’m not racing all the time, I don’t want to get lazy, so I just get on and ride it like six times in a row. It’s a great ride, but to me it’s only about a quarter of the amount of Gs we pull on the top fuel cars. I can sit there and just relax.
For spectators, what do you think the main differences are between coming to see drag racing and something like F1?
In drag racing, everyone who buys a ticket gets a pit pass. When we get done running these top fuel cars, we have to totally strip the engine and rebuild it, which is great for the fans because they get to come and watch. You can come talk to the drivers too, there are no formal autograph signing sessions because the drivers are always 100 per cent accessible.
Yas Drag Racing Festival takes place March 4-5 at Yas Marina Circuit. Tickets are priced from Dhs50 and are available to buy from www.yasmarinacircuit.com
