Michael Satterfield
TGR Staff -11/15/2021
Unveiled at Auto Club Raceway in Pomona, Toyota’s new race car for the 2022 NHRA season in Funny Car competition, will be a GR Supra, which will race for the first time the season kick-off in Pomona in February. Since 2012 Toyota Funny Cars have been styled after the Toyota Camry, the NHRA Supra joins other Toyota race cars in NASCAR and GT3 racing, making the Supra Toyota premier performance flagship. The 2021 season has marked the 20th anniversary of Toyota’s official involvement in NHRA with competitors in both Top Fuel and Funny Car.
Toyota’s commitment to race vehicles that closely resemble production vehicles continues with this GR Supra. With the new body on the Funny Car for 2022, it marks the most significant styling characteristics of any previous Funny Car.
After 10 years of fielding the Camry in NHRA Funny Car competition, it’s really exciting for us to be moving to the GR Supra and ultimately the next generation of Funny Cars for NHRA, our team at TRD (Toyota Racing Development) along with the design team at Calty worked hard to incorporate as many features from the production GR Supra into the Funny Car that J.R. Todd and Alexis DeJoria will drive in 2022.
Paul Doleshal, group manager of motorsports for Toyota Motor North America.
In addition to the augmented styling characteristics of the new GR Supra Funny Car, safety enhancements have also been made during the development of the new car. These include giving the driver more visibility while sitting behind the wheel and adding more room around their helmets along with additional safety foam in the driver’s cockpit of the GR Supra. TRD worked closely with Toyota Champion Funny Car driver, J.R. Todd, on many of the safety enhancements during the nearly two-year development process.
