NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

Sean Bellemeur never set out to chase history in Top Alcohol Funny Car. As a 6-year-old kid, peering into the cockpit of his father’s flopper, he could only imagine what it might be like to actually drive the car.

When he did get a chance to drive, for his father and then for other teams, he wasn’t chasing Frank Manzo. He wasn’t trying to be Pat Austin. He was just the kid who dreamed, who absorbed every bit of knowledge shared by a multitude of mentors or gleaned by watching his heroes in action, but even he never could have dreamed that one day he would be a five-time world champion, collecting one more season title than “Pat Awesome” and behind only Manzo’s untouchable 17 crowns.

“I never had the expectation that I could be a champion,” he admitted. “I remember when I won my first race, a Division 7 race in Tucson [Ariz.] in 2007, and I didn’t want to let go of that Wally because I never thought I’d get to be holding a Wally in my hands.”

He didn’t win his first national event until years later, as a fill-in driver for Tony Bartone in 2015 and again in 2016, both times winning the Texas NHRA FallNationals, before accepting the full-time ride from the former world champion-turned-team owner that has blossomed into a class dynasty.

Forty-six more wins and five championships in eight years, he’s still not willing to say he has obtained greatness. Even as he stares at a wall full of Wallys, the best he can offer is, “Sean Bellemeur is very blessed to be where he is. I’m not the kind of guy who can answer that yes or no. I consider myself the luckiest Funny Car driver in the world.”

Lucky in that he not only has a generous and well-funded team owner in Bartone but also one of the class’ great tuners, Steve Boggs, twisting the wrenches to win after win and championship after championship.

The 2025 season began with more Boggs magic, an injected nitro combination three years in the making that shook up the class, another challenge Boggs created for himself after years of methanol mastery.

“You don’t have to keep Boggs motivated, but there’s always a new challenge,” Bellemeur explained. “With Steve’s history and success with injected nitro, it was a no-brainer. We really had no idea what to expect. I’d never even driven one.”

Turns out, he had built a rocket ship.

In testing, the car unloaded the “shot heard ’round the world”: a 5.28 at 283 mph — seven-hundredths quicker than their own national record, even if the car was under legal weight. At legal weight, they reset the national record and won the Amalie Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals, the American Rebel Light NHRA 4-Wide Nationals in Charlotte, and the Cleetus & Cars regional event in Indy. All the while, NHRA rules makers were seeking ways to rein in the combination, continually reducing nitro percentage until the combination no longer was dominant.

“We felt the car became a middle-of-the-pack car, and that’s not something we can do when we’re chasing a championship,” said Bellemeur.

No problem: Boggs just resorted back to the blown alcohol tune-up that had won them four championships.

“It felt like I put my glass slipper back on,” said Bellemeur. “I was home again. Boggs was incredibly frustrated with the rules changes — he felt like he was being punished for being good at his job — so his promise to me was that he was going to tune that blown car with a mother-effing sledgehammer. He said, ‘This car is going to be on wreck; be on your toes every run.’ ”

The team hammered out wins at the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals in Norwalk and the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals in Brainerd, overcoming freak breakage like broken electrical lines and adjustments inside the bellhousing. Still Boggs kept tinkering, and Bellemeur continued to masterfully drive the car.

By late season, the championship competition had dwindled down to just Brian Hough and third-generation racer Maddi Gordon, but a big win at the St. Louis regional was followed by a titanic win at the FallNationals on the 10th anniversary of his first career win that put them firmly in the driver’s seat. When Hough lost in the first round at the Las Vegas national event to Steve Gasparrelli, the championship was again the property of the “Killer Bs”: Bartone, Boggs, and Bellemeur.

“We don’t count points over at Bartone Racing,” Bellemeur attested. “We let NHRA tell us. Our goal is to win the next run: qualifying, testing, or eliminations. Part of the allure of winning a championship is the fact that when they tell you that you’ve finally done it, boy, it hits you like a ton of bricks. I had no idea that it could have happened in round one. I had just won my round ahead of Brian, and one of the officials at the top end took me to the TV monitor, and I kind of peeked over at it. Brian Hough was up, and at first, it wasn’t even clicking to me, and then it dawned on me, and there’s two cameras on me, and I thought, ‘Well, wait a minute, I’ve seen this on TV before. That means something could happen.’

“I knew Steve could beat him; he’s a wily veteran, and he knows how to race big dogs, and I’ll be darned if Hough didn’t lose traction. What an incredible feeling. I remember seeing my team coming up in the tow vehicle, all of them were screaming and yelling, and it was such an incredible feeling to have a back-and-forth horse race all year long and then win. It’s a lot of fun for the fans, and it’s really good for the class.

“Tony is the best owner you could ever ask for, because he provides whatever it takes: people, parts, personnel, resources. Boggs never stops. His résumé speaks for itself. The team is as good as they get. We could flip the thing over and catch it on fire, and they’d have it ready in 45 minutes for the next round. They’re incredible. So, all I can do as the driver is to match their intensity.”

Referring back to his original statement of his team’s place in the history of the class, Bellemeur finally allowed, “We’re on a level not many teams have been on in Top Alcohol Funny Car history. I often wonder what it would be like to measure ourselves against Frank at his peak, or Pat or Brad Anderson, or Bob Newberry. I don’t think we’d have won all of them, but I bet we’d have won our fair share.

“It’s a dream come true. A dream I keep living, and I’m going to keep living it as long as they’ll let me,” he said.

Bellemeur thanked his Killer Bs team — Tony Bartone, Steve Boggs, Nick Stoms, Troy Green, Justin Taylor, Garrett Bateman, Matt Krebs, Lauren McMaster, Brian Gawlik, and media specialist Kyle Chura — and their sponsors: Red Line Oil, Roger Dean Chevrolet, Talon Air, NGK Spark Plugs, VP Race Fuels, Mastercam, Park Miller, and Brad Anderson Enterprises, and offered a special thanks to Artie Bruno, Tommy Hill, Aryan Rochan, the McMaster family, GetSpeed Racing, and, of course, his own family: wife Ashley and daughters Peyton, Kiera, and Audrey.