Drag Racer Brittany Force Sets New Top Fuel Speed Record at 341 MPH

As of writing, the fastest production car on the planet is the Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+, which topped out at 304.73 mph in 2019. John Force Racing pilot and world champion Brittany Force made the Chiron look a little bit slow by clocking the fastest run in Top Fuel history.

The 38-year-old reached 341.59 mph during a qualifying run ahead of the 15th annual American Rebel Light National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) 4-Wide Nationals. She broke her previous record, which she set at 338.94 mph in 2022, and posted the first 340-plus-mph run ever in the class. If you’re more familiar with the metric system, that’s nearly 550 kph. For context, sound travels at approximately 767 mph.

Force set the record in a dragster rated at a massive 11,000 horsepower. She crossed the eighth-mile line in 3.667 seconds at precisely 301 mph, which sounds both absolutely thrilling and somewhat terrifying, and reached the record-breaking speed on her way to the finish line.

Not that long ago, blasting through the eighth-mile at 300-plus mph was unheard of. Mike Salinas became the first racer in NHRA history to do it when he crossed the 660-foot mark at 300.80 mph in 2023. His achievement was significant enough to earn him a $30,000 prize.

Force credited her crew for the record.

“They work so hard. My crew chiefs, David Grubnic and John Collins, and every member of this crew. And, for us to be able to accomplish that together and hold on to that, I hope we hold it for a long time. It’s pretty special,” she told the enthusiast publication DragZine.

Her record illustrates how quickly dragsters have become over the past few decades. Hitting 200 mph was a huge achievement in the 1960s; Don Garlits made headlines when he clocked a 201.34-mph run in 1964. Kenny Bernstein went above 300 mph for the first time in 1992.

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