THE 2025 INTERVIEW ISSUE
THE 2025 INTERVIEW ISSUE
known over the years that I thought was a problem and I’ ve had years to sit and think about it, and I got lucky and I think that’ s one reason it runs as good as it does.
Now, with this new combination added to your stable, what’ s the goal for the 2025 season? Bellemeur: The goal is simple: win. Tony Bartone puts in the effort, building an infrastructure and putting a race team of this caliber together to do one simple thing, and that is win drag races and championships. What we are doing is attempting to put ourselves in the best possible position to win – with which combination that’ s going to be at the end of the year, I honestly can’ t tell you. What I do know is that this injected nitro combination is very fast. I think you know that. We kind of blew up the internet by testing, and what we do know is that we have two very fast race cars, one with a blower on it, one without.
For me personally, it’ s hard to justify getting out of a car that I’ ve driven for 20-plus years, that I feel I can do about anything I want in, to a combination in a car that I know nothing about. That’ s just me. That’ s the selfishness in me, I suppose.
The NHRA has a rule in place that only lets you switch combinations so many times before being penalized, so what we have to do is be careful about if we switch when we do it and what is going to give us the best opportunity to win because in the end that’ s Tony Bartone’ s goal. That’ s our goal as a race team.
As unknown as this whole thing is right now, it’ s unknown to us, too. We’ re venturing into uncharted territory. I don’ t know another race team out there that has both combinations sitting in their shop that they could potentially win with.
Staying along the lines of this, what’ s your take on the state of the Top Alcohol Funny Car class, and where do you see the future of it going, especially with the introduction of this new combination? Bellemeur: It’ s no secret that Top Alcohol Funny Car needs something. The car counts have been dwindling. What I feel has been spectacular is
“ NHRA has let it almost get boring, and they wonder why the car count is going away. They won’ t run us in front of a crowd.”
the level of competition. Just because the entries are down doesn’ t mean it’ s any easier. So that doesn’ t help the qualifying sheet when there are only 12 cars on it.
We’ ve lost some cars to [ Funny Car ] Chaos. We’ ve lost some cars to nostalgia racing and the Mid-West Drag Racing Series. However, I’ ve been in this industry long enough to see drag racing as kind of a circleof-life-type industry. The popularity of something goes away, and they go do something else, and a lot of times people will come back, whether it’ s the same people that left in the first place or a new genre of racer coming in. A perfect example of that is Pro Stock. Five years ago, you couldn’ t get a full Pro Stock field; now they’ re everywhere.
I know of a couple teams that are actually running quarter-mile NHRA alcohol Funny Car drag racing for the first time in years. They left, and now they’ re back, so that’ s gonna help. We’ ve been working with NHRA over the last couple of years to make Top Alcohol Funny Car more visible and make it a popular class to run in. I think we’ re starting to see some results of that.
I am hearing of more injected nitro Funny Cars being built and, let’ s face it, when something happens that is good, people want to follow it. So, whether it’ s Bartone Brothers Racing or Randy Meyer or Mick Steele, somebody goes out with one of these injected cars and shows its potential, really shows its potential, I think people are going to gravitate toward that. There just hasn’ t been a huge exposure of them yet, and that’ s to the fault of nobody, but like our car, it’ s taken two years to build this car. So, there is a little bit of a growing pain when you’ re in the infancy of something. So, I believe that once we start seeing more of them built, you’ ll see the popularity grow, and much like the injected nitro dragster combination, it’ s going to be cheaper to run. Well, you know what? Everybody likes cheaper.
I’ m more excited about the future of alcohol Funny Car than I think some of the other people out there.
THE BARTONE BROS. A / FUEL FUNNY CAR LIT UP
THE INTERNET WHEN IT FIRST HIT THE TRACK IN A PRESEASON TEST SESSION AT GAINESVILLE RACEWAY AND CONTINUED THE TREND AT THE
“ BABY GATORS” NHRA REGIONAL EVENT.
I think there are a lot of good things to come. I think the future is bright.
One more question about the new Funny Car – the procedure is different when driving a blown combination versus an injected nitro one. That said, when you were driving the injected car, did your routine get thrown off, and did muscle memory try to take over? Bellemeur: One-hundred percent correct. My car chief, Troy Green, he lowers the body down. Troy and I met in 2001, and he and I have been on race teams together forever. I brought Troy into this team. He’ s the guy I wanted. He is the best of the best, and he’ s also in my top two or three friends I have in my entire life.
Troy was joking with me because on the blown alcohol car, he always lowers the body down and every time I always wrap the throttle and I wrap the throttle because it’ s awesome. That’ s why. A lot of people go,“ Hey, how come you do that?” Because it’ s cool. Troy got on the radio before the first run in the injected car; he goes,“ Don’ t you hit that throttle.” I said,“ Oh come on, what fun are you?” Knowing that I can’ t, you don’ t do that in a nitro car, of course. He goes,“ Well, let me get 100 feet out of the way before you do.”
So, you bet – it threw my entire routine off. I practiced in my brain
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