{"id":78997,"date":"2024-05-21T11:01:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-21T15:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dodgegarage.com\/news-api\/?p=78997"},"modified":"2024-05-21T10:08:05","modified_gmt":"2024-05-21T14:08:05","slug":"ida-zetterstrom-announces-2024-nhra-schedule-and-crew-chief-expands-relationship-with-dodge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/racing\/2024\/05\/ida-zetterstrom-announces-2024-nhra-schedule-and-crew-chief-expands-relationship-with-dodge.html","title":{"rendered":"Ida Zetterstr\u00f6m Announces 2024 NHRA Schedule and Crew Chief, Expands Relationship with Dodge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Zetterstr\u00f6m to Compete in Eight 2024 NHRA Mission Foods Series Events Under the Tuning Direction of Jon Schaffer<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The JCM Racing team has announced that 2023 FIA Top Fuel champion Ida Zetterstr\u00f6m will make her NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series debut at Brainerd International Raceway, Aug. 16 \u2013 18, in Brainerd, Minnesota. Aboard the JCM\/VP Racing\/Edelbrock\/CompCams Top Fuel dragster, Zetterstr\u00f6m will stage a 12,000-horsepower machine in competition for the first time in the U.S. when qualifying for the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals kicks off on Friday, Aug. 16.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m so excited to share that I\u2019ll finally be hitting the track at Brainerd and will be competing alongside my teammate, Tony Schumacher, in the final eight of 20 races on the schedule this year,\u201d said the Swedish-born racer who relocated to the Indianapolis area in January to be near JCM Racing\u2019s Brownsburg, Indiana headquarters. \u201cI\u2019ve been champing at the bit to share my first race date, but we wanted to wait until we had it completely buttoned up first. <\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cFans have been asking what\u2019s taking so long for me to get on the track, but the reality is, it takes a while to assemble a new operation. I didn\u2019t move to the U.S. and hop into the driving role of a team and operation that already existed. Instead, we\u2019re building this team from scratch and there\u2019s a lot that goes into that. In addition to building a car and figuring out a crew, we have to stock our parts inventory, trucks and trailers need to be purchased and outfitted as fully stocked race rigs, wraps need to be designed, approved, and installed. The list goes on and on, but I\u2019m so glad that we finally have that Brainerd date confirmed because now the countdown is on \u2013 86 days!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the Brainerd event, Zetterstr\u00f6m will join Schumacher on drag racing\u2019s largest stage when the duo of JCM Racing Top Fuel pilots hits the track for the 70th annual NHRA U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis over Labor Day weekend. After closing out the Mission Foods Series \u2018regular\u2019 season at Brainerd and Indianapolis, Zetterstr\u00f6m will run the full slate of <\/em>NHRA Countdown to the Championship events as she pursues NHRA\u2019s 2024 Rookie of the Year award.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs many who follow me on social media know, I\u2019ve been traveling to every race with the team this year,\u201d added Zetterstr\u00f6m, who has completed two test sessions so far, one in the car she will campaign in 2024, and the other in Schumacher\u2019s car. \u201cJon [Schaffer, who currently serves as Schumacher\u2019s co-crew chief alongside Mike Neff] and the team have been working tirelessly to get everything ready for my Brainerd debut. Jon will be moving over to my team full-time starting in Brainerd, so it\u2019s been great that we\u2019ve been able to spend this time really getting to know each other before just going full throttle with this whole operation. I\u2019m right there with the team at the shop helping wherever I can, and at the track, I mix the fuel before every one of Tony\u2019s runs and jump in as an extra set of hands whenever needed. Being able to travel with the team and work alongside them at the shop has been great because I have been able to develop such strong relationships with all of them and have felt extremely comfortable and trusting in them during those first few test days. I can\u2019t wait to have that moment of getting suited up and strapped into my JCM\/VP Racing\/Edelbrock\/CompCams dragster when we pull up for that first qualifying run in Brainerd.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Supporting Zetterstr\u00f6m\u2019s efforts as she vies for her first drag racing trophy on U.S. soil is the Dodge brand. Stafstrom has a previous relationship with the overseas operation of the iconic muscle car manufacturer, having served as a Dodge brand ambassador in Europe for the past year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI love being affiliated with Dodge and representing American muscle car culture in Europe. Last month, I flew to the Netherlands to take in the full FIM Superbike World Championship experience as a guest of Dodge. I made the first lap before Saturday\u2019s Race 1 in my Challenger SRT\u00ae<\/sup> Hellcat, and I also participated in the award ceremonies of the Superpole. Dodge\u2019s cameras captured it all\u00a0and\u00a0my experience will be documented\u00a0in the first episode of the latest season of IN\/\/OUT, a Dodge Europe series that fans can catch on the Dodge Official YouTube page.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dodge will be providing Zetterstr\u00f6m and the JCM\/VP Racing\/Edelbrock\/CompCams Top Fuel team with off-track vehicle support and social media exposure throughout the remainder of the season. Dodge recently sent Zetterstr\u00f6m and fellow Dodge ambassador Leah Pruett to Radford Racing School where the two straight-line speedsters put their skills to the test behind a pair of Hellcats on the Chandler, Arizona facility\u2019s road course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a Dodge-affiliated driver, Zetterstr\u00f6m will also participate in driver autograph sessions and Dodge-backed media events with Pruett, Matt Hagan, Tony Stewart, and Cruz Pedregon. When she hits the track in Brainerd, her race car, helmet, and firesuit will all carry the Dodge logo, demonstrating her ties with the brand that is so embedded into the drag racing culture. Beyond her eight-race 2024 campaign piloting the JCM\/VP Racing\/Edelbrock\/CompCams Top Fuel dragster, Zetterstr\u00f6m is slated to run the full 2025 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series schedule. She has plans to test at least twice more before making her competition debut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Zetterstr\u00f6m to Compete in Eight 2024 NHRA Mission Foods Series Events Under the Tuning Direction of Jon Schaffer The JCM Racing team has announced that 2023 FIA Top Fuel champion Ida Zetterstr\u00f6m will make her NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series debut at Brainerd International Raceway, Aug. 16 \u2013 18, in Brainerd, Minnesota. Aboard the JCM\/VP Racing\/Edelbrock\/CompCams Top Fuel dragster, Zetterstr\u00f6m will stage a 12,000-horsepower machine in competition for the first time in the U.S. when qualifying for the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals kicks off on Friday, Aug. 16. \u201cI\u2019m […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":78995,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[575],"tags":[528,615],"class_list":["post-78997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-racing","tag-drag-racing","tag-nhra"],"acf":[],"custom_fields":{"post_thumbnail_image":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/IdaPR_Feature.jpg","social_image":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/IdaPR_Social.jpg","icon_selection":"article","external_link":"","featured_article":[],"upload_background_image":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78997"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78997"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79002,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78997\/revisions\/79002"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}