{"id":104784,"date":"2026-09-11T22:44:05","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T22:44:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/uncategorized\/brian-hope-brought-the-show-back-to-indy-in-the-rat-trap-aa-fuel-altered-and-he-did-it-on-purpose\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T22:44:05","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T22:44:05","slug":"brian-hope-brought-the-show-back-to-indy-in-the-rat-trap-aa-fuel-altered-and-he-did-it-on-purpose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/uncategorized\/brian-hope-brought-the-show-back-to-indy-in-the-rat-trap-aa-fuel-altered-and-he-did-it-on-purpose\/","title":{"rendered":"Brian Hope Brought \u2018The Show\u2019 Back to Indy In The Rat Trap AA\/Fuel Altered, And He Did It On Purpose"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was pushing 7:30 on Friday night at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park. The Top Fuel and Funny Car fields were stacked up in the lanes waiting on their first shot at the 72nd running of the Cornwell Quality Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals, and the air was thick enough to chew. Miserable heat. Painfully high humidity. The kind of evening where the tuners in the pro pits were pulling timing out of their cars and praying.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when Brian Hope rolled the Rat Trap into the water box.<\/p>\n

If you don\u2019t know the car, you know the shape. Bantam roadster body. Blown, 90-percent nitro Hemi hanging out in the wind. A driver perched so high he could see over the roof of everything else in the staging lanes. It\u2019s the AA\/Fuel Altered Don Green named in 1968 as a joke about trapping Chevy \u201crat motors\u201d with a Chrysler, the car that toured with Winged Express and Pure Heaven II back when Fuel Altereds were the most violent things in drag racing, and the car Ron Hope recreated with Green 30 years ago and then hauled around the world for the better part of three decades.<\/p>\n

Hope smashed the throttle. The tires went up in smoke, he backed off the loud pedal just enough to keep them sizzling, and he kept them boiling to damn near the eighth-mile mark. Then he stopped it, backed all the way up, staged it, and busted off a 6.48 at 226 mph in some of the worst air anybody at IRP will see all year.<\/p>\n

It was poetic. It was a blast from the past. It was a piece of pure showmanship that, honestly, has gotten rare at highly professional drag races these days, and there\u2019s no doubt the U.S. Nationals qualifies.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the thing, though. None of it was an accident.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing into Friday night, we were asked by the NHRA to be there, and that was very important to us, to be honored and asked to participate in that event,\u201d Hope told me this week. \u201cWe\u2019re gonna run right before Funny Car. We\u2019re gonna run the quarter mile. I\u2019ve sat there and watched nostalgia Funny Cars run, and not to knock nostalgia Funny Cars at all, either right before or right after the pros, doing a short burnout and a run right down the middle that\u2019s a second or more slower and over 100 miles an hour slower. It\u2019s not a good representation of what those cars are, and it\u2019s really not good for the fans.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

\u201cWe wanted to go out and do what we do. Those cars have never really been competition cars throughout the history of Fuel Altereds. They\u2019ve run in competition, but they\u2019ve always just been show cars, and we wanted to go out and put on a good show. It\u2019s hard on the equipment, doing an eighth-mile burnout and coming to a stop at a thousand foot and backing it up and staging it and running it through. But we\u2019re out there to put on a show, and that\u2019s what we went out to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read that again. Hope walked into the biggest drag race in the world, in the middle of NHRA\u2019s 75th anniversary celebration, knowing full well the fastest Funny Cars on the planet were going to run right behind him and go a second quicker and 100 mph faster. He didn\u2019t try to compete with them. He gave the crowd the one thing they can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the whole point of a Fuel Altered. It always has been.<\/p>\n

And the other half of what makes it impressive is the car itself, which Hope is not remotely shy about.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt drives like a 40-year-old International dump truck,\u201d he said. \u201cThe steering\u2019s horrible in it and the seating position\u2019s horrible, but it\u2019s just a fun car to go out and show off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hope came to the Rat Trap by way of Pure Hell, Rich Guasco\u2019s legendary Fuel Altered, which he drove for 15 years, most of that time racing against his own father. Those two cars are the only race cars Brian Hope has ever driven. The first time he ever ran against another car on a drag strip, any kind of car, he was in Pure Hell.<\/p>\n

\u201cComing from Pure Hell, which is an amazingly built race car by Davey Uyehara that can go anywhere on the racetrack I want to take it at any speed, the Rat Trap is not that,\u201d Hope said. \u201cThe Rat Trap is cumbersome. It\u2019s difficult. For 28 years I watched Dad drive that thing, and everything that I said I would never do when I drove that car, I did in the first two runs. The very first race after Dad retired, we went to Nitro Revival at Irwindale and I ran over the 330-foot cone in the burnout. It was just the cone and I didn\u2019t put it in the wall, but it becomes something you have to embrace. It\u2019s not for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the view from up top.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like the giraffe a little bit out there,\u201d he said. \u201cThat car sits very upright. It\u2019s uncomfortable, and it\u2019s distracting to sit that high because you can absolutely see everything. You have to train yourself to not pay attention to things that don\u2019t matter, like what the front tires are running over. If you\u2019re looking at the front tires, you\u2019ve already hit whatever you\u2019re pointing at anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s the machine he stood on the gas in for 660 feet on Friday night. In front of the biggest crowd of the year. With the pros waiting behind him.<\/p>\n

The car in the other lane deserves its own paragraph, because it\u2019s every bit as much a piece of history. Randy Bradford was driving the Bradford\u2019s Crank Service Fiat, a car whose lineage runs back to the family\u2019s first altered in 1966. Sixty years, run out of Bradford\u2019s Crank Service with Randy\u2019s dad, Dexter Bradford. Randy started driving at 18, while he was still in high school, and he\u2019s driven the car the entire time since except for his tour in Vietnam, when Frank Harris sat in for him. The car they brought to Indy was built in the late \u201890s, and Randy\u2019s grandson, Mitchell Bradford, is listed as crew chief.<\/p>\n

Which means you had two family Fuel Altereds, each tuned by a grandson, both of which were at Indy for the 50th U.S. Nationals and came back for the 75th anniversary. NHRA gave it one sentence in the legends press release. It deserved more than that.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Anyway. The 6.48 was a hell of a number for the air. The Hopes knew it, and they knew there was more in the car.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got back Friday night and Michael\u2019s looking at me going, \u2018Dad, we only ran a .48. We gotta pick it up,\u2019\u201d Hope said of his son and crew chief, Michael Hope. \u201cI said, \u2018All right, son, let\u2019s look at this. We can get more out of it. We can squeeze it. But it means we can\u2019t do a really long burnout, and it means we got to pick up our starting line procedure. And we\u2019re still a full second and a hundred miles an hour slow of the car that\u2019s going to run right behind us. What do these people want to see?\u2019 He\u2019s like, \u2018All right, you got it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

They took Saturday off. In Hope\u2019s words, they \u201cshook babies and hugged hands\u201d and got the social part of Indy out of the way, checked the rod bearings for peace of mind, and rolled it back to the lanes Sunday with the same timing and the same blower overdrive. Hope says the car doesn\u2019t ask for much, and that Friday night they could have adjusted the clutch, changed the oil, screwed in eight plugs and run it right back in the lanes if they\u2019d needed to.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe weather came to us,\u201d he said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t change the timing, we didn\u2019t change the blower percentage. The only thing that changed for us was the weather, and it ran a 6.33 Sunday afternoon, which is the quickest run that car\u2019s ever made.\u201d<\/p>\n

Six-thirty-three at 227 mph. On a 105-inch wheelbase. In front of the U.S. Nationals crowd.<\/p>\n

If 227 sounds soft for a 6.33, it is, and Hope knows exactly why. The Rat Trap turns 9,500 rpm through the lights, and once the fuel pump speed gets that high the car has more pump than the magneto can use. It goes fat on the top end and lays down. When the air is right, like it was at the Blue Suede Cruise at Norwalk, the car has run high 230s.<\/p>\n

Now, full disclosure. I\u2019m not objective about this car. The first major event I ever promoted, before I was married to Pro Mod, was the World Fuel Altered Nationals at Eddyville, Iowa, in August of 2005. I called every human being on the planet who owned a Fuel Altered, and I called Ron Hope more times than I can count. There was no appearance fee. He came anyway. Having the Rat Trap in Eddyville was the crowning achievement of that whole deal for me, and it still is.<\/p>\n

Ron Hope drove that car for a quarter century before handing it to his son. He turned 80 on Father\u2019s Day in 2024 and passed five days later. One week to the day before he died, Brian was in the Rat Trap at Bowling Green and Michael rolled Ron up from behind the burnout box so he could watch. The family takes that photo with them everywhere the car goes now.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey didn\u2019t call Brian Hope because they wanted to talk to Brian Hope,\u201d he said of the NHRA invitation. \u201cThey called because of what Dad had done with that Rat Trap and where he had taken it and the legacy that he created with it. I\u2019m proud to be able to get to do what he did.\u201d<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s the part nobody in the stands Friday night knew. Indy was supposed to be the end.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had intended on the Rat Trap being at Indy for the last time. That was going to be it,\u201d Hope said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t want to say forever. We didn\u2019t want to say we were retiring. We were just going to quietly go away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then Bill Bader Jr. asked what would happen if he called about next year, and Hope told him the truth: if Bill calls, the car runs. Bill already called. The Rat Trap will be at Summit Motorsports Park in 2027. Hope says the same goes for Brock Porter at Bowling Green, and a short list of others who, when they ask for the car, get it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a history, there is a significance of that car,\u201d Hope said, \u201cand when people ask to see it, then it\u2019s my responsibility to get it out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sixty-foot burnouts and runs down the middle are fine. That\u2019s not what this car is for. Brian Hope reminded one of the biggest crowds in drag racing what a Fuel Altered is supposed to look like, and he did it in air that should have made it impossible.<\/p>\n

Somebody needs to keep calling.<\/p>\n

This story was originally published on September 11, 2026. \"Drag<\/p>\n

The post Brian Hope Brought \u2018The Show\u2019 Back to Indy In The Rat Trap AA\/Fuel Altered, And He Did It On Purpose<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was pushing 7:30 on Friday night at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park. The Top Fuel and Funny Car fields were stacked up in the lanes waiting on their first shot at the 72nd running of the Cornwell Quality Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals, and the air was thick enough to chew. Miserable heat. Painfully high […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104784\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}