Sean Bellemeur and crew chief Steve Boggs look back on dominant 2024 season and look ahead at new A / Fuel Funny Car venture

By Kayla Zadel • Photographs by Alex Owens

While the Bartone Bros. Racing team wasn’ t physically harmed after their 2023 season, losing the NHRA Top Alcohol Funny Car world championship evoked a strong desire for retribution. In the following season, they inscribed“ 2024 Vengeance Tour” on the wicker bill of their Funny Car, known as the“ Pirate Ship,” serving as a constant reminder of their mission.

Determined to reclaim their status after the 2023 season’ s setback, Bartone Bros. Racing came out swinging and embarked on their 2024 Vengeance Tour with Sean Bellemeur at the helm and legendary crew chief Steve Boggs leading the ship. This relentless drive propelled them to a series of record-setting victories, punctuated by wins at the NHRA 4-Wide Nationals in Las Vegas and zMAX Dragway, sweeping the four events held at Summit Motorsports Park, and the prestigious 70th annual Toyota NHRA U. S. Nationals.

Their dominance continued in Dallas, tallying the JEGS Allstars and national event wins, culminated in securing the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series Top Alcohol Funny Car championship and also taking the crown in the NHRA North Central Region as TAFC champions, marking a perfect season that has only been achieved three times in the TAFC class.

The“ Killer Bs,” as they’ re often referred to, are comprised of team owner and former drag racer Tony Bartone, four-time NHRA TAFC world champion Sean Bellemeur, and renowned tuner Steve Boggs. Team members Troy Green, Nick Stoms, Justin Taylor, Garrett Bateman, Seth Shebester, Matt Krebs, and Lauren McMaster support them, consistently rowing in the same direction.

The team posted a total of 850 points in TAFC, capping off the 2024 season with their seventh national win at In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip, picking up the Ford Performance NHRA Nationals victory, which was delayed from The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway two weeks prior.

Now, the Bartone Bros. Racing team is taking on a new venture in 2025 – a nitro-injected Funny Car. Bellemeur’ s and Boggs’ interviews were conducted before the 2025 Mission Foods NHRA Drag

Racing Season got underway( and the“ Baby Gators,” where they won the TAFC Wally). However, the team had experimented with the new combination at Gainesville Raceway during a pre-season test session, and, what lit the internet ablaze, unleashed an astounding 5.288-second blast at 283.49 mph.

Full of passion and personality in their voices, Bellemeur and Boggs sat down with Drag Illustrated for an in-depth conversation about their 2024 season, what the future holds for them and alcohol drag racing, and what makes the“ Killer B’ s” hum.

Let’ s start off talking about last season. You called it“ The Vengeance Tour.” Where did all of that stem from? Bellemeur: The foundation and motivation for 2024 started with a loss in Dallas, Texas, in 2023. It’ s widely documented, the rivalry we’ ve had over the years with the Gordon family, mostly before last year, Doug Gordon and myself, even dating back to my days of driving my dad’ s alcohol Funny Car out West. We’ ve just always thrown blows, and it’ s always been a lot of fun.

So, in 2023, we were immersed in yet another very tough battle for a world championship. Talk about a day of highs and lows. About one hour before I got beat on a holeshot to lose the world championship, we had won the JEGS Allstars. It was one of those things where that round, I wasn’ t late, but I got my butt kicked, and the numbers didn’ t fall into place. Personally, I was embarrassed as hell. I’ ve lost before. I’ ve lost on holeshots. I’ ve lost on red lights. I’ ve lost a lot of different ways. But that one, with what was at stake – the team stepped up and I didn’ t, and I took that extremely personally.

Following up from that, I had a conversation with Tony Bartone – it was more of a pep talk than a conversation. He’ s an incredible motivator; he’ s a hell of a leader. In fact, I think that is proven by his successes in life both on and off the racetrack. We won every race after [ Dallas ]. Now too little, too late to win the championship in 2023, but we had won all three races left, and so over the winter time between’ 23 and’ 24,

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