Brittany Force Redefines Fast at Sonoma

When Brittany Force straps into her Monster Energy Top Fuel dragster, it’s more than a race—it’s an evolution of speed. And on a crisp Friday night in Sonoma, with cool air feeding power into nitro-burning engines and 10,000-horsepower dreams, she didn’t just show up—she detonated expectations.

At the 37th NHRA Sonoma Nationals, in front of an electric California crowd, Force did what only she seems to do: she broke her national speed record again. Blistering down the 1,000-foot dragstrip in 3.645 seconds at an unimaginable 343.16 mph, she didn’t just take the provisional No. 1 qualifying spot—she redefined what “fast” even means.

And if that wasn’t enough, consider this: her speed at the 660-foot mark was 304.94 mph. That’s the fastest speed to the eighth mile ever recorded. Nobody has ever reached that speed at 660 feet. Nobody but Brittany.

From Charlotte (341.59 mph) to Epping (341.42 mph) to Seattle (341.85 mph), and now Sonoma, she’s made crossing the 340-mph threshold look routine. But this latest leap wasn’t just another record. It was a sprint into uncharted territory.

“This is still settling in,” Force said. “We’ve run great mile per hour lately, but our goal is always elapsed time, not mile per hour, but to jump over 342 and go right to 343, I still can’t believe we did it.”

Believe it. The 39-year-old, 18-time national event winner and 2013 NHRA Rookie of the Year is no longer just the daughter of a legend—she is the legend. With two Top Fuel World Championships under her belt and a level of consistency that makes chaos look calm, Brittany Force has become the undisputed queen of nitro-powered velocity.

Behind her historic run is an equally relentless team. Crew chiefs David Grubnic and John Collins have refined this dragster into a precision instrument of violence and grace. It’s a machine that dances with danger, but under Brittany’s control, it glides like a guided missile. And that run? It wasn’t even perfect.

“It actually moved around a little and I thought about taking my foot out of it for a second,” she admitted. “Then I said, ‘No, I can get it there.”

She didn’t just get it there—she got it somewhere we’ve never been. At Sonoma Raceway, Brittany Force has carved her name into the pavement. With the fastest eighth-mile in history and the highest top-end speed in the sport, she’s not chasing history anymore. She is history.