Top Fuel fan-favorite driver Clay Millican teamed up with Bradenton, Florida’s own Cleetus McFarland — who owns the Freedom Factory next door to the Bradenton Motorsports Park — to put the YouTube star’s name and likeness on the side of his 11,000 horsepower Parts Plus dragster for the inaugural PRO Superstar Shootout.
After some promotional video opportunities earlier in the week, which included teasing placing Millican’s dragster on McFarland’s chassis dyno, the two concocted the ultimate pairing: putting Cleetus’s 7-second-capable “Ruby” Corvette in the beams next to the 330 mph dragster.
Last season, McFarland raced a Top Alcohol Dragster in his 6-second “Mullet” El Camino at his Cleetus and Cars event in Indianapolis, but left at the same time, robbing us of the unique perspective of a much quicker car rocketing past the slower–but-still-quick street-legal car. This time, however, Millican spotted McFarland about 200 feet (or approximately 1.817 seconds) and then proceed to rocket past the otherwise quick turbocharged machine.
To be fair, Ruby was running off-pace, only going 5.63 at 106 mph to the 1/8-mile and a slowing 7.96 to 1,000 feet (potentially a result of an electrical system interference from the monster in the other lane), but the perspective is incredible, as Millican flashes by as if the Corvette is going 106 mph in reverse. The 1/8-mile speed differential was in fact 188.55 mph.
An interesting fact: if Ruby were to have gone across the starting line already going 200 mph and maintained a steady speed, it would cover 1,000 feet in 3.4 seconds, and a 1/4-mile in 4.5 seconds. In other words, it would barely beat a Top Fuel dragster, leaving from a sitting start at the same time Ruby crossed the starting line, to the 1,000-foot block, and would likely lose a 1/4-mile race. It’s a staggering fact that highlights the jaw-dropping performance of a Top Fuel car.
Millican, it should be noted, went an impressive 3.683 seconds on this run, at 330.23 mph, clocking .841 seconds to 60 feet, 2.105 to 330 feet, and 2.959 at 294.95 mph to the 1/8-mile.
