Top Fuel dragsters are designed to really do one thing: cover 1,000 feet of drag strip as quickly as possible. From a driving standpoint, that may sound simple, but what goes into making that happen is actually fairly complex. In this video, fan-favorite Top Fuel racer Clay Millican gives us a detailed explanation of how you actually drive a Top Fuel dragster.

To the casual fan, it looks like a Top Fuel racer just straps into a car and hammers the throttle as soon as the tree drops. In reality, the driver is the lead dancer in a carefully choreographed horsepower ballet that requires sharp attention to detail. Even with all of the modern technology that’s packed into these Top Fuel dragsters, the driver still has a lot to do.

You’ll hear a lot of talk during a televised race about the clutch tuning that goes into one of these cars. Millican pulls the curtain back a bit more and talks about how the driver actually interacts with the clutch in a Top Fuel dragster. These cars have a clutch pedal the driver uses to get the car rolling. The clutch system has to be loaded by the driver before each run, as well.

The driver has full control over how much fuel the engine gets via the fuel pump lever inside the car. The fuel flow and fuel pressure are monitored by the driver on the dash. Millican explains how he uses that information to set the fuel flow based on what the crew chief wants to see. This is just part of what the driver has to do each run when it comes to manipulating how much fuel the engine receives.

You’ll want to watch this entire video so you can see all the different tasks the driver has to perform when running a Top Fuel car. Make sure you check out the rest of Clay’s YouTube channel, as there’s tons of great behind-the-scenes content about nitro racing you’ll enjoy.