NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

NHRA’s 75th Anniversary salute to its racers will continue with the next collection of great racers, a list of NHRA’s Top 25 Alcohol Drivers.

Much in the same way as the previously released Top 75 Drivers and Top 50 Sportsman Racers lists, the celebration of more than two dozen of the sport’s greatest Top Alcohol Dragster and Top Alcohol Funny Car racers were created by a panel of racing experts from all walks of the sport.

These amazing talents will be celebrated with a special medallion presented at future NHRA national events.

The list will be unveiled on five consecutive Tuesdays, starting today, with five drivers added each time. Here's the first group.

Pat Austin

There may not be a driver in any NHRA category who burned brighter during a five-year span than Pat Austin between 1987 and 1991.

All four of his championships and a good chunk of his 70 career Top Alcohol Funny Car national event wins and 54 divisional wins occurred during that time span before he retired from the seat more than a decade later. He also became the first driver in history to double up in national event competition by winning in both Top Alcohol Funny Car and Top Fuel at the 1991 Topeka, Kan., event and then repeated the feat a few months later at the 1992 Phoenix race

Austin’s fourth title in 1991 occurred with a perfect 10-win season on his scorecard. With his Castrol-sponsored entry barnstorming the country, his winning output was even more abundant than what was reflected in the standings. Austin’s talent and killer instinct combined with the horsepower orchestrated by his father, Walt, instilled fear in their opponents.

Blaine Johnson

The late four-time world champion is one of the class greats despite having only competed for six seasons before his mid-1990s ascent to the Top Fuel ranks along with his brother and crew chief, Alan.

Johnson won in his second career start at the 1988 NHRA Gatornationals and quickly proved to be a dominant force, setting a then-class record of 26 wins by the end of the 1993 season. The duo also won five divisional championships, three in Division 7 and a pair in Division 2, compiling 26 divisional event victories along the way.

Blaine won four consecutive season titles between 1990 and 1994, eclipsing Bill Walsh’s class-leading mark and holding the record until Rick Santos surpassed it with his fifth title in 2001. Johnson’s 1992 season was the first perfect season in the 10-race points format.

Bucky Austin

Like his nephew, Pat, Bucky Austin also carved a successful career path in the Northwest as the self-proclaimed “Northwest Hitter” won eight Division 6 Top Alcohol Funny Car championships, 17 NHRA national events, and 44 divisional Wallys.

In 1958, Bucky and brother Walt built a Top Gas car together but soon went their separate ways, and they would spend a lifetime competing against one another. Bucky’s first national event win was at the 1989 event at their Seattle hometrack, defeating Pat and Walt in the final round, and he would beat them again in the final round of the 1998 NHRA World Finals in Pomona. Austin would win his hometown race four times.

Austin would enjoy a 15-year winning career, scoring his final victory at the 2004 Sonoma event before moving to a car owner’s role for a number of drivers. A stint in Steve Plueger’s Nostalgia Funny Car in 214 piqued his interest in the class, and he has gone on to become the dominant owner/tuner in the NHRA Hot Rod Heritage Racing Series with drivers like Bobby Cottrell and Shane Westerfield, and competes now against Pat and his driving son, Drew, in the class.

Doug Gordon

Doug Gordon’s driving career began in 1996 when he succeeded his father, Mike, in the cockpit of the family Funny Car, and he displayed elite natural talents immediately. Although he won his first of 36 divisional events that year, he didn’t win his first national event until the 2001 Seattle event, but it has been in the past decade that he has emerged as a perennial title contender, winning 19 times since 2020 and collecting world championships in 2020, 2022, and 2023.

After turning the seat over to his daughter Maddi in 2024, the three-time world champion and 27-time national event winner unretired in 2026 when Maddi moved up to the Top Fuel ranks. The situation provided the opportunity for the biggest moment of the three-generations-spanning race team at the Norwalk event this year, where Doug won Top Alcohol Funny Car, Maddi won Top Fuel, and Maddi’s team owner Ron Capps won Funny Car at the same event.

Joey Severance

Recipe for success: A modest personality with a killer instinct, wheeling a car prepared by an outside-of-the-box-thinking father left no quarter for competitors hoping to gain an edge during a run of five season titles.

In Severance’s case, he captured four consecutive world championships between 2015 and 2018 and grabbed another in 2022, ending the Meyer family’s three-year dominance in the class and striking a blow for the traditional supercharged powerplant against the dominant A/Fuel Dragster combinations. He became just the fifth driver in the class’ 50-year history with four championships, joining Blaine Johnson, Rick Santos, and Bill Reichert.

He also collected four West Region championships and, before that, four Division 6 championships while amassing 41 regional/divisional victories. The Severance family also owns and operates the popular Woodburn Dragstrip track in Oregon.