Ranking the Top 50 NHRA Racers of the Sport’s Modern Era

To celebrate their 50th anniversary in 2001, the NHRA released a list of their top 50 drivers of all time. Since then, nearly 20 racers have turned up and pleaded to be on such an honor roll.

Steve Torrence, for example, burst onto the pro scene after winning a 2005 championship in the Top Alcohol Dragster class. In 2018 he became the first and only so far to win all six countdown races en route to the first of four consecutive titles. With 16 wins in the Pro Stock Motorcycle category, Antron Brown joined Top Fuel in 2008 and picked up three championships and 55 event trophies for third best in drag class history. Tony Schumacher had one Top Fuel crown until 2001, but he added seven more, including six in a row (2004-09).

When the original Top 50 list came out, Robert Hight was a crew member on John Force’s Funny Car team. But in 2005 he received the Rookie of the Year award to launch a career that includes three championships and 61 wins (third best in Funny Cars history). Ron Capps had not won 20 races until 2001; now he has 72, second only to Force’s 155 wins in Funny Car, along with a trio of titles.

Over the past 21 seasons, Greg Anderson has surpassed 100 wins and won five championships, Erica Enders equaled Anderson with a fifth title, Angelle Sampey became the most decorated woman in drag racing with three championships and 46 wins, and Gary Scelzi and Del Worsham took both titles in the Top Fuel and Funny Car classes. Six-time champion Jeg Coughlin Jr. showed his versatility, leading his combined athlete and pro stock wins to 84. And Andrew Hines took the all-time lead in motorcycles with six titles and 56 race wins.

So car week wanted to try to spot the new wave of racers. Merging the original list with an updated one was no easy task — and likely any reader will see omissions, inclusions, and orderings worthy of at least a pout.

We focused on the modern era, defined as 1974-present. Prior to 1974, the NHRA season winner was determined as the winner of the World Finals event. It has been a point system since 1974. And the NHRA didn’t start crowning Pro Stock Motorcycle class points champions until 1987, which is why you won’t find motorcycle pioneer and three-time US Nationals winner Terry Vance on that list – he collected most of his trophies before ’87 .

The beauty, or bane, of such an exhaustive list is that no conclusion is “right” or “wrong.” Each rank is just an opinion. The number of races, the advancement of technology and safety equipment, the level of corporate culture and the quality of the circuits have all varied over the years making it impossible to set a list in stone.

It’s also worth noting that the criteria the NHRA established for its 2001 list carried weight “Not just achievements on the track, but other contributions to the sport including technological and sponsorship achievements, fan popularity and more.” We’ve tried to focus more on the on-track numbers for this list. And bonus points for championships, as we constantly hear from riders that they’d happily trade a handful of wins for a championship.

We hope you enjoy looking back at some of the NHRA’s greats over the past five decades.