Wayne Hoffman To Race ’95 Throwback In Honor of Late Father

The 2024 Funny Car Chaos Championship Tour kicks off at the season opener in Ennis, Texas April 4-6, 2024. In attendance will be over 50 Funny Cars qualifying to compete in a 32-car “run whatcha’ brung” field, and amongst the entries will be Wayne Hofmann, son of the legendary Al Hofmann, who will be sporting a special tribute paint scheme to honor his late father.

Wayne, of New Preston, Connecticut, has been racing the Funny Car Chaos series since 2022, but has been around the sport of drag racing, alongside his father, since the day he was born. Hofmann is excited to run this tribute paint scheme on his car in memory of his father and their passion for drag racing they both shared together.

By 1986, at the age of 18, Wayne was part of a three-man crew and primarily worked on the bottom end of his father’s nitro Funny Car. Sponsors came onboard in the 1990s for Hofmann Racing as his father raced professionally in the NHRA Winston Drag Racing series, becoming the second Funny Car to join the 300 mph club in 1994.

Once the archrival of NHRA Funny Car king John Force, the late Al Hofmann was considered an “ill-tempered roughneck.” With 15 national event wins and 32 final round appearances, Hofmann was a true legend who quickly gained a reputation for his gritty, ‘tough as nails’ personality both on and off the racetrack. The year 1995 served as their best season as Al, Wayne, and their team finished second in the championship standings behind Force.

Photo courtesy of Wayne Hoffman Racing

Fast forward to the early 2000s, after his father retired, Wayne regained the desire to go racing. He got his groove back through bracket racing and, by 2006, he was running the IHRA Top Dragster class, picking up a win at the Northwest Nationals shortly after his return. By 2008, Wayne and his father attended Frank Hawley’s Drag Racing school with the intention for Wayne to obtain a Top Alcohol Funny Car license. They had their sights on running the class as a father-son duo. During the process, on March 20, 2008, Al passed away at age 60, halting their plans as Wayne and his family navigated the sudden loss. As life for the Hofmann family continued, Wayne took a hiatus from racing to focus on raising his son, Dylan, and three daughters, Rachel, Alyson, and Kelly with wife, Jodi.

“In 2020, I realized it was now or never to get back racing again, so I put a Funny Car together with the goal of running the Funny…