Dedicated fans show
their allegiance by
sporting chicken hatst’s the fastest form of motorsport you can fi nd
anywhere, it has its European championship-deciding
event in England next month, and the driver bidding
to follow up their 2018 title with another crown is...
a middle-aged Finnish mum. While circuit racing
and rallying bid to get greater female participation, drag racing is
ruled by Anita Makela. Crowned FIA champion in 2016 and 2018
in the headlining Top Fuel category, she’ll be bidding to retain
the title at Santa Pod over its big weekend on 6-8 September.
A stint at summer school in the late 1970s in the US – the
home of drag racing – initially fi red the then-16-year-old Makela’s
enthusiasm for powerful machinery. While in Ohio, she fell in love
with the notion of acquiring a Pontiac Trans Am. “For a country
girl raised with three other sisters on the family’s chicken farm in
Vilppula, central Finland, this was for me a dream car,” she says.
Back home and fi ve years later, she bought a Trans Am and it
wasn’t long before the lure of cruising, car shows, diners and
generally having fun with like-minded fans of American cars
took a fi rm hold. An overheard conversation in 1987 at her
local drag strip – Motopark Raceway in Virtasalmi, around
150 miles east of her home – led to her procuring her fi rst
dragster, a Competition Eliminator entry previously
campaigned by Norwegian racer Rune Gronlund.
A group of friends became involved as crew members and,
after the rookie team won the fi nal race of the season at Motopark,
Makela, now 26, saw that there was an event at Santa Pod. The
race car was transported the 1500 miles to the home of British
drag racing where, unfortunately, it was left much the worse
for wear after the parachutes were late in deploying during
an eliminations run, the dragster running into the farmer’s
ploughed fi eld at the end of the shutdown area.
The unfazed Makela quickly regrouped and went on to annexe
her country’s class championship both in 1988 and 1989, as well
as earning kudos for running Finland’s fi rst seven-second elapsed
time. “I worked alongside my father, eff ectively the two of us being
responsible for building up the poultry hatchery business to a
point where we were doing rather well,” she recalls. “Not that I
expected my racing career to be funded by dad, relying instead
“The car was left much the worse for
wear after the parachutes were late in
deploying during an eliminations run”
I
22 AUGUST 2019 AUTOSPORT.COM 29TOP FUEL DRAG RACING