Asked about safety, both Callin and Erbacher talk about having “respect” for the car and the risks.<\/p>\n
Over the years, strict procedures and regulations in Top Fuel have evolved to improve safety.<\/p>\n
Drivers wear fire-resistant suits and sit in highly protected cockpits. Even after dramatic accidents, drivers in many cases escape relatively unscathed. This includes Callin, who has had two major crashes, suffering a concussion and a bruised collar bone, but no lasting injuries.<\/p>\n
She says serious accidents are a “very small percentage”. Even so, she is still not sure she would be comfortable if her daughter wanted to race in Top Fuel, with its extreme speeds.<\/p>\n
Erbacher says her father initially refused to let her race, but relented when she declared she would do it with or without his help. He now manages her team.<\/p>\n
More Than Equal also points out that the financial barriers to participating in drag racing are lower than for some other motorsports.<\/p>\n
It takes millions of pounds to reach Formula 1, requiring high levels of sponsorship. Elite drag racing is also expensive, but not on the same scale. At the lowest levels, accessible racing events called “track days” take place, where participants can turn up and drive their own ordinary cars.<\/p>\n
In the biggest Top Fuel championships, drivers race for themselves and earn points based on how they perform against their competitors. The European championship consists of four events – two in the UK, and one each in Germany and Sweden – in which each driver takes part in six races. Prize funds are limited, mostly serving as a contribution towards costs.<\/p>\n
The US championship is on a larger scale, with 20 events across the country. The NHRA has not published a breakdown of prize money, but according to drag racing website Competition Plus, there is $500,000 (\u00a3378,000) for the 2026 winner, and significant pots for winners of individual events throughout the season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Asked about safety, both Callin and Erbacher talk about having “respect” for the car and the risks. Over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":795773,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[59,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-795772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-gb","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/795773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}