The NHRA’s Top Alcohol Dragster and Funny Car categories will see a major addition in 2026 with the introduction of a third engine/fuel combination: a supercharged nitromethane setup. The new option joins the existing supercharged methanol and injected nitromethane configurations and aims to provide a more direct learning path for teams eyeing a move into the nitro ranks of Top Fuel and Funny Car.
This new combination allows teams to run supercharged engines on nitromethane fuel with a cap of 85% nitro content. It mirrors many of the same components and tuning systems used in professional nitro racing, offering a cost-effective and transferable stepping stone.
Funny Car world champion tuner and driver Del Worsham originally proposed the idea to NHRA. Along with Terry Haddock Racing, he tested the combination in late 2023. After the fall Las Vegas event, Worsham’s car posted a 5.62-second run, competitive with the current Top Alcohol Funny Car field.
“We just don’t have enough teams coming up through the alcohol ranks, which is how my dad and I and [Richard] Hartman and Dale Armstrong all got started,” Worsham told the NHRA. “When we went from Top Alcohol Funny Car to AA/Funny Car back in the late 1980s, we were able to use almost everything we owned. When we bought stuff — blocks, cranks, heads, blowers — it was all usable. That’s not an option today, so you just don’t have an easy way to transfer people. You spend a quarter million dollars on a Top Alcohol Funny Car, and not one piece of it can be used in a nitro Funny Car, except maybe the trailer.”
Worsham believes this new combination will help solve that disconnect.
“With this new option, you’re going to get teams that can and will transfer classes,” he said. “You’re going to get people who learn how to work on these cars, have all the same parts and all the same tuning abilities, the same command module, the same computers, the same MSD timing graphs, which should create a lot more people who suddenly can do this or want to do this. That was the whole idea.”
Technical specs for the new combination include a maximum supercharger overdrive of 16.99%, one magneto and coil setup, a four-disc clutch with six primary levers (no clutch management allowed), and no artificial fuel heating or cooling. Funny Car bodies must meet current nitro class specifications.
This story was originally published on May 27, 2025.
The post NHRA to Add Blown Nitro Engine Option in Top Alcohol Classes for 2026 first appeared on Drag Illustrated.