I’m one of the world’s fastest women with a death-defying 340mph day job… but I still can’t shake my two ‘childish and silly’ everyday fears

Published: 10:18 EST, 13 November 2026 | Updated: 10:20 EST, 13 November 2026

Maddi Gordon’s day job involves defying death as one of the fastest people on the planet. When the professional drag racer jumps behind the wheel of her 13,000 horsepower Top Fuel dragster, she travels 1,000 feet in under four seconds, hitting speeds of 340 miles per hour.

‘Absolute insanity would be my two words for it,’ she tells the Daily Mail. ‘People ask me, does it hurt? I always say, ‘it hurts so good!’ It’s pretty wild.’

The 22-year-old Californian is a self-confessed ‘adrenaline junkie’ who has done everything from skydiving and jumping off the Stratosphere in Las Vegas to spending hours wake boarding or skiing or riding motorbikes. But fearless, as most people presume? Not quite.

‘I definitely have fears,’ she admits. ‘I think that my fears are probably things people laugh about because they sound so childish and silly.

‘I am absolutely petrified of being left alone in the dark. I hate the dark. I absolutely hate it. It is like, absolutely not. If it’s dark outside, like no lights, I will not go outside by myself.

‘And number two is spiders or small creatures. I’m not a bugs person. I don’t like bugs. That’s my two things I really do not like.’

Maddi Gordon is a rising star of NHRA – but the 22-year-old admits she is not entirely fearless

Gordon poses with WNBA superstar Sophie Cunningham at a recent event in Madison, Illinois

Gordon reaches speeds of over 340mph in her death-defying job driving a Top Fuel Dragster

Gordon knows it sounds illogical. Especially given the way in which she so easily brushes off the very real dangers she faces on a weekly basis. If things go wrong in a Top Fuel Dragster, the consequences can be life-changing or even fatal.

‘You know, that’s something that you’ve really got to put behind your mind,’ she says. ‘That is absolutely a factor, that is something that, before anybody gets into the driver’s seat, you have to accept that is a possibility.

‘Of course, you have to accept the dangers of the race car. But in my opinion, you should never get in a race car if you’re scared of it. When you’re scared, things are going to go wrong.’

She takes comfort in knowing safety has never been more advanced, and her team couldn’t possibly be more stringent. ‘I quite literally trust them with my life,’ she says.

Unlike on a long, dark night, things happen quickly in Gordon’s place of comfort and chaos. Almost too quickly for anyone to comprehend.

‘It’s less than four seconds,’ she says. ‘You probably think, well, you know, what can happen?

‘I mean, it’s all so short, but oh my goodness. We gain 100 miles per hour every second. You blink and it’s over, quite literally.

‘At the hit of the throttle, we pull over four G Forces, and then you are pulling over 6 G’s, which is over 700lbs of force on your body. Then when you hit the parachutes, you go from pulling 6 G’s to -8 in the blink of an eye. It is just absolute insanity.’

Gordon has learnt to ignore the dangers she faces every time she gets in the car

Gordon (right) admits she has two ‘childish and silly’ fears despite her death-defying day job

She is reliant on her state-of-the-art safety equipment including parachutes to keep her safe

Gordon describes the feeling of driving the 13,000 horsepower cars as ‘insanity’

It’s an insanity she has spent years trying to explain. It is ‘almost impossible to relate it to anything’, she admits, but compares it to riding a motorcycle when ‘all of a sudden it really just ramps up and takes off.’

Or driving a forklift truck, albeit much slower, where the vehicle is steered by its rear wheels, making it shaky and unstable. ‘That’s my best way to relate it to regular life experiences,’ she explains.

‘When you are going 340 miles per hour, the car is never actually fully hooked up to the race track. It’s always spinning, so when you’re going on the racetrack, the back end of the race car is always sashaying and moving back and forth.’

It is impossible to appreciate the feeling inside the cockpit, while few can understand the experience of just watching, either, unless they have seen it live and in the flesh.

‘It really is a see it to believe it kind of sport,’ Gordon says, noting each car has 14 times more power than a single NASCAR car.

‘It’s absolutely absurd to even comprehend how much horsepower that is. It’s just like blow your mind kind of stuff. It just sounds unreal.

‘And 13,000 horsepower hitting the gas right in front of you? It literally shakes the ground. It shakes the stands. You feel it in your bones when these cars go by.

‘You smell the nitro, you hear it, you feel it. And it is absolutely awesome.’

It is easy to see why Gordon is quickly becoming the rising star of the NHRA. Her energy is infectious as she talks about the sport she loves, and she’s producing the results to match that excitement.

Gordon has become a huge hit with fans in NHRA this year and generated massive support

Her engaging personality and enthusiasm has shone through during her rookie season

As their season draws to a close this weekend, she sits sixth in the Top Fuel standings with just one woman, the legendary Leah Pruett, a 12-time winner and wife of NASCAR legend Tony Stewart, ahead of her.

The rookie took her first Top Fuel Dragster win in Ohio in June and, just last week in Las Vegas, hit speeds of 340.82mph in a career-best run of just 3.693 seconds as moves closer to becoming the world’s fastest woman and the best drag racer in the world.

‘Definitely been an amazing year,’ Gordon says. ‘I mean, absolutely living a dream. Learning a ton. My 1st year as a professional race car driver. So, a lot to learn, but it’s been absolutely wonderful and our team’s doing a fantastic job.

‘I’m just so proud of, so proud of everything we’ve been able to build in a very short amount of time, and Ron Capps, he put together an amazing, amazing group of guys to work on our race car, and I’m really happy with the results we’ve been having so far.’

On the same day as her first win, her dad, Doug, also won the Top Alcohol Funny Car race, a full circle moment for the close-knit family. She was surrounded by cars and attended her first race when she was just eight days old. When she was eight years old, she got in a race car for the first time.

‘Racing was always in our blood,’ she says. Gordon still grew up playing softball, volleyball and gymnastics. ‘We did all the normal sports,’ she says. ‘My parents wanted to raise us to just be very well-rounded.’

Gordon won her first race in Ohio in June with her team boss Ron Capps also winning that day

Gordon is fulfuling a lifelong dream to become a race car driver after growing up going fast

‘Racing is always what we chose,’ she reflects. ‘As long as I can remember, quite literally, I’ve always wanted to be a race car driver. That’s been something I’ve dreamed my entire life.

‘It truly has been the biggest blessing in my life. And I love to talk about racing. Because if I can inspire just one person to get involved, then it’s worth it.

‘From a very, very young age, I’ve loved drag racing, but not just a driving portion of it. I love it all. I love being a fan. I love working on the race cars. I just love drag racing as a whole.’

These days, she’s been thrust into a role as one of the new stars of the sport. Her energetic presence at racetracks and in front of the cameras is bringing thousands of new fans along for the ride.

It’s a responsibility she takes pride in, carrying the Gordon name from her ‘super, super close family’ that to this day remains ‘really, really close knit.’

They grew up in a small town in Paso Robles, where her family has owned a residential cabinet shop for 52 years. The way they’ve done business has, inadvertently, shaped her into the rising star she is today.

‘We’ve never done any form of advertising,’ she explains. ‘Never done a newspaper ad, no TV ads. Everything that my family has built has been from word of mouth. And in a small town, word travels fast, good or bad.

‘So from a very young age, my sister and I have always taken a high amount of pride for our last name. We’ve always taken pride in being a Gordon, and, always wanted to represent ourselves well.

‘And I think that really corresponds into my career now. I’m young. I have a lot to learn in life. I barely even know how to do my own taxes.

‘So people come up to me, and they’ll say I’m a role model to them or they look up to me, and I take that very, very, very seriously.

‘It just means a lot that I could inspire people to maybe chase their dreams or race cars. Or maybe it has nothing to do with racing, but maybe just chasing their dream of whatever it might be.’

Gordon takes great responsibility in her duty to grow the sport and engage with fans

The Californian now has her eyes on a massive future in the sport looking to 2027 and beyond

Away from the track, her need for an adrenaline rush has taken a backseat while she focuses on her driving career.

‘You name it, anything with horsepower or something that’s wild, I like it,’ she says. ‘But driving these race cars, I’ve had to kind of cut back on some of the wild things that I do.

‘My team depends on me to be ready for the weekend. They depend on me to have the right mindset and the right physical capabilities to drive this race car. And I take that to heart.

‘So nothing’s really on the bucket list, because at this point in my career, I would choose Drag Racing over any other extreme sports, for sure.’

Going into the offseason, it’s only the unextreme – like being in the dark or encountering spiders – that Gordon will find herself worrying about. If she can keep conquering those fears, then going even faster in 2027 will be a breeze.