DANGER ALWAYS RIDES SHOTGUN IN DRAG RACING.

By the time they’ve donned their helmets and thick fireproof cladding, they look like bomb-disposal technicians.

- BY MARSHALL PRUETT

But they’re racers—National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Funny Car drivers. Willfully, these deranged types burrow into tiny cockpits to commune with drag racing’s hurt locker.

“Looking down and seeing the driveshaft between your legs, 12,000 horsepower... if you're claustrophobic at all, a Funny Car is not the place to be,” three-time NHRA world champion Ron Capps says of his workplace.

In Capps’s world, the unforgiving walls that funnel his missile down the strip aren’t the objects to fear. The profound danger comes from the cars themselves. Eruptive catastrophes running in a straight line can author plenty of pain and trauma before any concrete gets involved.

If a driver is fortunate, the nitromethane-fueled, supercharged V-8 won't grenade during the 1000-foot charge to the finish line. But stay in the profession long enough, and you're bound to be part of a rapid unscheduled disassembly. Fortune eventually runs out, and then fate tries to kill you.

“It’s exciting, with the noise and the horsepower it makes, but when things go wrong, they go wrong in a big way. Throughout my career, just the concussion of the explosion itself has knocked me out several times, and no debris had hit my helmet,” the 60-year-old California native says.