Swedish-born Ida Zetterstr\u00f6m has called Finland home for many years, but her residence in Indianapolis makes it very clear that she\u2019s quite serious about racing long term on U.S. soil. Zetterstr\u00f6m, the 2023 European FIA Top Fuel champion, has partnered with Joe Maynard and his JCM Racing team to make her debut alongside teammate Tony Schumacher at the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals in Brainerd this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
[Editor\u2019s Note: This story originally appeared in DI #189, the Women of Power Issue, in July\/August of 2024.]<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been working toward the goal of racing NHRA Top Fuel for many years,\u201d says Zetterstr\u00f6m, who started racing a Jr. Dragster at the age of eight and went on to race Super Comp, then transitioned into a two-motorcycle Super Street Bike team with boyfriend Kim Hilander. Zetterstr\u00f6m won the Scandinavian Super Street Bike championship in 2019.<\/p>\n By the end of 2020, the ambitious young racer knew she needed to shift her main focus back to her biggest goal and licensed in Top Fuel, and through a fortunate opportunity to race with Rune Fjeld Motorsport, Zetterstr\u00f6m\u2019s dreams began to really take shape. With the RF Motorsport team, she set multiple FIA records and won races in impressive fashion on the way to the series title. The next step for Zetterstr\u00f6m was racing NHRA Top Fuel, and a chance meeting with Maynard set the ball rolling.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI was in the USA at an NHRA race last year to meet with some sponsors and [make] some potential connections for the future, and I was introduced to Joe Maynard through our mutual friend, Mike Salinas,\u201d explains Zetterstr\u00f6m. \u201cMe and Joe got to talking and quickly realized we had a very similar vision on the business side of racing with sponsors, partnerships, marketing, and great teams.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The two agreed to follow up on their conversation after the event. One conversation turned into a stack of others and, eventually, the expansion of JCM Racing to include Zetterstr\u00f6m as a second Top Fuel driver alongside Schumacher, an eight-time world champion and the most winning Top Fuel driver in history.<\/p>\n \u201cJCM Racing was not looking for a second driver at the time, so for Joe to make the decision to bring a second team out with me in the driver seat was a huge deal,\u201d says Zetterstr\u00f6m. \u201cI have worked so hard to reach this point, and I have had some offers from other teams, but I hadn\u2019t yet felt like I\u2019d found the 100% right fit. It was a little surprising the way it came about and that the team created this opportunity around me, but it just felt completely right. I knew very early when talking to Joe that this was a team and a program I wanted to be part of. I feel like we have so much to offer the sport and our partners.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Zetterstr\u00f6m\u2019s move to Indianapolis has allowed her to get comfortable with her team and follow the full NHRA tour, getting a feel for the flow of a top-tier NHRA team, representing her team\u2019s partners, and making new connections along the way.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I moved over to Indianapolis in February, my team was already hard at work with everything from my car to trailers and parts,\u201d continues Zetterstr\u00f6m. \u201cBuilding a whole new team takes time, and we\u2019re still receiving shipments of parts, tools, and more, but it\u2019s very exciting to see it all coming together, week by week. My crew chief, Jon Schaffer, has been pulling double-duty on Tony\u2019s car and building my program at the same time, but now he has stepped over to focus 100% on finalizing everything on my team before we hit the track in Brainerd.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI expect challenges, and there will be hurdles to overcome, but I try not to predict them too much before they happen. Honestly, I will have some cobwebs to blow off when I get out there, and we won\u2019t have [12] events worth of data that everyone else has. But I know I\u2019m hungrier than ever to go out there and show what I can do. I have so much trust in my team and my crew chief that I\u2019m not too worried about it, and I think we have every chance to come out here and shake things up. I\u2019m here to chase championships, simple as that. This is not an easy task and something that will take time, but I want to see myself in this sport for many years. I feel like with a great team and great partners, we\u2019ll be able to accomplish that. I can\u2019t wait to get started.\u201d<\/p>\n This story was originally published on August 23, 2024. <\/p>\n The post DI Women of Power 2024: Ida Zetterstr\u00f6m is Champion Material<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Swedish-born Ida Zetterstr\u00f6m has called Finland home for many years, but her residence in Indianapolis makes it very clear that she\u2019s quite serious about racing long term on U.S. soil. Zetterstr\u00f6m, the 2023 European FIA Top Fuel champion, has partnered with Joe Maynard and his JCM Racing team to make her debut alongside teammate Tony […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95576","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"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}