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By no means is Colby Fuller new to drag racing, but the 2024 season brought about a number of firsts for the 24-year-old from Savannah, Ga. He started the year with his first divisional trophy, raked in his first Super Comp national event win a few months later, and went on to lock down his first NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series world championship before the year was even through. 

“Honestly, it was pretty crazy,” said Fuller. “We started out the year just wanting to finish in the top 10, then we went to the first divisional and came home with a win. It wasn’t a bad start, but it was up and down from there. I’ve been staring at the trophy every day, and I still don’t think it’s set in yet.” 

Fuller grew up watching his dad bracket race a Chevy Nova, initially running gamblers races at local tracks and working his way up through the drag racing ranks. Fuller remembers sitting and watching from the tailgate of his dad’s truck until he received a Jr. Dragster shortly after he turned 8, and then it was his turn to chase win lights. He advanced to racing at the division level when he was of legal age and had come up empty-handed until this year when he opened the season with a win at the Southeast Division opener at Orlando Speed World Dragway. 

“At that point, I was honestly just thrilled to have my first division win,” said Fuller, who had previously won at the national event level. “I know there are guys racing their whole life who still haven’t won a division race, but I have run divisionals since I was 16, and to finally get my first division win at 24, it was like, ‘Hell yeah, we finally got it.’ ”  

A third-round finish at South Georgia Motorsports Park in his home division kept the ball rolling, but it was the victory at the Charlotte NHRA 4-Wide Nationals that began to kindle thoughts of a championship chase.  

The Super Comp victory at zMAX Dragway was his first national event win in the category and came with superior driving skills on display in his well-performing Maddox Race Cars-built dragster. After a series of strong starts throughout eliminations paired with well-played ventures at the finish line, Fuller met Michael Handras in the final round. Handras, who had won the event in 2022, was fresh off of a near-perfect reaction time in the semifinals, but in their meeting, it was Fuller with the upper hand as he dished out a .009-second reaction time and paired it with a dead-on 8.908-second pass next to an 8.930.  

“I wasn’t even thinking about points there; I was just having a good time, and we had a good weekend,” he recalled. “But when we went to take pictures, I said to my dad, ‘Hold up. We already have two wins – if we can do somewhat decently the rest of the year, we have a shot at the championship and a shot at the top five.’ It was right there after Charlotte that we said, ‘All right, let’s buckle up, look a little deeper into the schedule, and try to be a little more strategic.’ ”  

A pivotal moment actually came at the Toyota NHRA U.S. Nationals, an event that wasn’t originally on Fuller’s schedule. The number of cars and rounds at the prestigious event can create a tough situation for drivers digging for points, and the weekend did turn out to be a rough one for Fuller. On the very first time run, he broke a valve spring, and that necessitated a trip to the engine builder’s shop, which resulted in significant repairs before the fall national event in Charlotte.  

“Without that weekend at Indy, we would have gone to Charlotte with a hurt motor and not had time to fix it, and then we would have missed out on some key events that eventually added points to our total,” recalled Fuller. “Steve Williams gave me the pep talk to go to Indy, and Shelby [Williams’s daughter and Fuller’s significant other] gave me the nudge. It turned out to be a good thing.” 

With the engine repaired and hope restored, Fuller ventured back to zMAX Dragway for the NHRA Carolina Nationals, hoping to repeat the successful weekend he experienced there in the spring. The round-wins began to snowball, and Fuller found himself in the semifinals and up against one of the toughest .90 racers in the nation, Ray Miller III.  

When his opponent outperformed him at both ends of the track to get the win, Fuller felt it like a punch in the gut. But the experience, coupled with a few other downturns over the summer, gave him the opportunity to work on the mental aspect of the long game.  

“That round at Charlotte, running ‘Ray-Ray’ at four cars – it would have been a big swing for us, but I screwed that up,” he recalled. “It was hard to keep myself going after that. I had myself thinking that was it. Those races that don’t go well, [especially] after you come off of a win or a decent weekend and you’re trying to carry momentum but lose first round or make no points – that was challenging. But that’s where you have to find the resilience to keep going.” 

Fuller was frustrated, but on the ride home, he pulled up the points and realized he still had a shot.  

“Plus, Dad, Shelby, and Steve wouldn’t let me get on myself too hard,” he said. “At the track when it was frustrating, they’d let me have my moments, but right after that, they were all there to remind me it’s not over ’til it’s over, keep going, you’ve got it.”  

After Charlotte, Fuller landed in Bakersfield for the Division 7 race at Famoso Dragstrip, and victory there sparked momentum that he carried on to Las Vegas. He reached the third round in the national before sealing the deal at the Pacific Division closer.  

Fuller had to win the third round to take the lead, but dry winds of the Southwest were whipping, and the driver who calls the Southeast Division home was in unfamiliar territory. He leaned into the encouragement of those closest to him, though, and didn’t overthink the numbers in the box. He survived the round, only to come up against friend Adam Hicks in the next act. The two ribbed one another relentlessly, but when it was go-time, Hicks broke in the water box and had to watch as Fuller got the win and a bye run in the semifinals. All he had to do was stage, and he would be the 2024 Super Comp world champion.  

“At that point, the nerves were off. I took a long time to stage and was just soaking it all in. It was over,” he said. “When I got my first national event win, I thought I would be happy if I didn’t do anything else because I had that win. But someone told me that once you get your first one, all you’re going to want to do is get another and another, and another. I know it’s easier said than done, but that might be true. We’ll see what the years have to bring.” 

Fuller expressed gratitude toward Maddox Race Cars, PAR Race Engines, Advanced Product Design, A-1 Performance, Hoosier, Hippie Headers, and Fuel Factory. He thanked parents Jimmy and Brandie, sisters Hailey and Jolie, and the Williams family, including Steve, Janet, and Shelby. 

Read more 2024 NHRA world champion profiles