NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

Tom Bailey isn’t a professional drag racer in the traditional sense. He’s something else entirely — part hot rodder, part street/strip adventurer, and part full-blown record-breaker. At the 2025 NHRA Peak Street Car Shootout in Chicago, Bailey scorched the dragstrip with a 263-mph pass, making history with the fastest door car run ever recorded in NHRA competition.  And he did it with the same car he has driven to Mexican restaurants while towing a trailer.

“This wasn’t even the hot tune-up,” Bailey casually remarked. “I lifted just after 1,100 feet, and we still went 263. That’s wild.” 

That kind of performance from a registered street car isn’t just wild, it’s nearly unthinkable. But Bailey’s story, much like the cars he builds, wasn’t born in the motorsports realm. It started on backroads and high school haunts and on Ohio dragstrips, where Bailey first raced a '76 Jeep J10 with a straight-six engine and manual transmission.

He walked away from racing for a time to focus on work and family. But it was a story in Hot Rod magazine about Drag Week in the mid-2000s that sparked a return. A '69 Camaro bought off eBay became his first project. He made his Drag Week debut in 2010. Then came his Sick 1.0 '69 Camaro, and then a machine on a quest to be the first five-second street car, Sick 2.0 '69 Camaro.

Fast forward to today: Bailey is synonymous with “World’s Quickest Street Car.” His Sick 2.0 '69 Camaro street/strip car is legendary in the drag and drive world. He’s competed in multiple NHRA Peak Street Car Shootouts, inclusing at the NHRA U.S. Nationals in 2019 when the rain limited action to a single pass.

But this weekend, in the shadow of Pro Mods and 330-mph Top Fuelers, Bailey’s pass captured imaginations. “It was straight as an arrow,” he said. “Didn’t need to pedal it. I just pointed it, and it went.” Bailey’s crew chief and son, Aydan, now 22, was the one tuning the car for that record-setting run. The same kid who used to air up the tires at age 10 or 11 is now behind the keyboard making 4,000-plus horsepower behave.

“He was there with me then, and he’s here with me now, making this thing run straight and strong,” Bailey reflected.

The moment has drawn comparisons to other NHRA milestones, like when Kenny Bernstein first hit 300 mph. Back then, Bernstein didn’t even realize he’d made history until the crew flashed a “3” hand signal. That same mix of disbelief and exhilaration was on Bailey’s face when NHRA announcer Brian Lohnes told him he’d just made the fastest door car run in NHRA history.

“It didn’t even feel like 263,” Bailey said. “When it’s right, it feels smooth. It doesn’t feel fast — it just is.”

Bailey’s 263-mph blast, and his entire career for that matter, is proof that home-built, street-driven street/strip cars still matters. That you can build something in your shop and rewrite the NHRA record books with it. As NHRA heads toward its 75th anniversary, Bailey's performance reminds us that the grassroots ingenuity Wally Parks believed in is still very much alive and faster than ever.

As part of the Peak Street Car Shooutout, Bailey also went on to win that race at Route 66. 

So, what’s next?

Another race, and another number to chase.

The Camaro is on its way to Beech Bend Raceway in Bowling Green, Ky., for Sick On the Green, May 29-31.  

But for now, the record stands, and Bailey’s waiting for his certificate. “I just want something that says it happened,” he said with a grin. Consider it written — right here in the history books.