Who Is The Fastest NASCAR Driver Ever?
Brittany Force has been tearing up NHRA drag strips this year breaking her own Top Fuel top speed record several times.
The mark now stands at an astonishing 343.51 mph set at the U.S. Nationals in Indanapolis, making her the fastest track racer in the world.
She might only touch the speed for a fraction of a second, but it’s far faster than any IndyCar or NASCAR driver has ever gone.
The IndyCar record was set during qualifying at the now-demolished Auto Club Speedway in California in 2000 by Gil de Ferran, who did a lap at an average speed of 241.428 mph.
It even beat the best time at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which was Arie Luyendyk’s 237.498 mph lap during the second day of qualifying in 1996.
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NASCAR cars are much slower than that and the series will likely never see its record broken again. It belongs to Bill Elliott, who did a 212.809 mph qualifying lap at Talladega for the 1987 Winston 500 behind the wheel of his streamlined Ford Thunderbird. Elliott had set the Daytona record earlier in the year with a 210.364 mph qualifying lap, but wouldn’t get a chance to match these speeds.
Bobby Allison suffered a huge airborne crash during the Winston 500 that tore down the catch fence and injured several fans. The incident led to NASCAR mandating restrictor plates at the Talladega and Daytona superspeedways to slow the cars, starting the next season. The pole speed for the 2025 Jack Link’s 500 at Talladega was 182.174 mph.
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That wasn’t the end of 200 mph records, however. Jeff Gordon qualified at Michigan International Speedway in 2014 at 206.558 mph and Kurt Busch just got over the hump with a Speed: 200.915 mph pole speed at Texas Motor Speedway in 2017.