NHRA's Spencer Hyde hoping head-scratcher of a season leads to stronger start in 2027

Spencer Hyde has become familiar with one of two outcomes every time his NHRA Funny Car runs.

Hyde and his Jim Head team either fight the car's inconsistency or come up on the wrong end of a really good drag race. There has hardly been an in-between for the reigning rookie of the year.

“We started out the year pretty strong, going to the finals of the second race [Phoenix], and we thought we were on track with things, and then we kind of ran out of our clutch discs and have been fighting that ever since,” Hyde recently told RACER. “We showed good promise in Indy and showed good promise in [Michigan] and came out on the wrong side of a good race in the first round.

“But yeah, we’ve been kind of struggling all season.”

A head-scratching and frustrating switch from how Hyde and company hit on things last year.

Hyde didn't qualify for the first two races of the season, which would have given critics all the fodder they needed to question why Jim Head wanted him in the car. But as laps started to get laid down and the weeks went by, the winds changed, and Hyde qualified inside the top 10 in eight of the next 12 races leading into the Countdown. He also went to two final rounds.

By season’s end, Hyde had proven himself with his first No. 1 qualifier (Reading), a Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty win, and a ninth-place finish in the final standings.

A year ago, Hyde had only seven first-round losses. He already has 10 this season, and his final-round appearance at Phoenix is the only time he’s reached the semifinals or beyond.

“You can blame that a little bit on where we’re qualifying,” Hyde said. “We seem to qualify a lot in the eighth or ninth spot, and we always know we’re going to go up against a good car, and it’s, like we said, coming out on the wrong side of a good race. We’re trying to put it all together; it’s been a struggle.”

On the positive side, Hyde, who has a background in door car racing with a successful resume in Pro Modified, including winning the prestigious World Series of Pro Mod in 2023, is much more comfortable behind the wheel this year. In Hyde's opinion, Funny Car is the toughest racecar to drive, and the hardest part is that when the car is inconsistent, the driver suffers the same.

“When your car is running well, everything is more confident: the team, the tuner, the driver,” said Hyde. “I think with us struggling with the car, everyone is struggling. It’s not one person to blame; we need to go a few rounds to get our momentum back, and we know we’ve got all the right parts and pieces to do it. We just have to put it all together.”

Hyde was on a streak of five consecutive losses in the first round before getting to the second round in the most recent event in St. Louis. With the championship well out of reach and not in their sights given how the season has progressed anyway, it’s almost a back-to-basics type of approach to end things.

“We’re focusing run to run here,” Hyde said.

The hope is to regain the car’s consistency, make good A-to-B runs, and gather as much data for 2027 as possible. In other words, regroup, start off ’27 on the right foot, and carry that momentum through a hopefully stronger season.

As for Hyde the driver, don’t expect him to feel like he has to perform for job security or to prove he deserves his ride.

“Listen, I want to win as much as anybody else here, and Jim does, too,” he said. “We all want to win, but I don’t feel like there is any pressure on me to win. I put pressure on myself to make sure my lights are consistent, and I can keep up with the other times on the reaction time. After that, besides keeping the thing in the middle, there is not a whole lot I can do to make the car better. I can only make it worse.

“So, I try to show everybody that I’m doing my part, and I’m not blaming anybody else because we have to get it all ticking. It’s been a struggle, but we’ll get it. I have faith in these guys. I have a really good team. The guys rarely make mistakes. They put the car together perfectly almost every run, and we just have to get back in the groove.”

Hyde qualified 12th for Sunday’s event at Texas Motorplex. He will face JR Todd in the first round.