NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

Doug Foley will make his return to NHRA Top Fuel competition at the NHRA Arizona Nationals after a 10-year hiatus from the class.

Foley recently completed his Top Fuel relicensing during test sessions at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park outside of Phoenix, which also is the site of the NHRA Arizona Nationals. 

The return to competition after a decade away is the result of eight months of intense planning by the Foley Lewis Racing team, which also includes racing partner Tim Lewis and co-crew chiefs Scott Gaddy and Jack Wyatt. The new team made a huge step towards that goal with its late-2019 debut at the NHRA Carolina Nationals in Charlotte, where Todd Paton drove the car.

“We're never going to be able to say it's our first race after this,” said Foley. “It's an enormous amount of pressure to perform well, just because the cars [in NHRA Top Fuel] are at such a high level. The quality is unbelievable. Yeah, we don't have the quantity of cars that we had before, but that doesn't mean anything on Sunday. You still gotta beat the cars that are out there, and they're pretty darn good.

“We feel a tremendous amount of pressure, but at the same time we're being reasonable with our expectations,” he added. “We're looking at the first three to four races as more of a test session as far as getting a tune-up figured out and trying to watch our parts attrition, while at the same time trying to develop relationships. The pressure is not just on the track, it's on what we do at the shop, how the team jells together and it's about how Guy [Pierce, relationship development] and I work together to generate the funds necessary to continue increasing the performance of the team.”

Foley is making his return to Top Fuel with the support of Strutmasters.com, Burns Mechanical, DDP Roofing, Inc., and Red Line Synthetic Oil.