Steve Burns,
Founder of VP...
Steve Burns,
Founder of VP Racing Fuels
Incorporated in 1975, VP Racing Fuels was the brainchild of drag racer Steve Burns who saw room from improvement in the race gases at the time. When he was 19 Burns headed to Washington, D.C., and the Library of Congress where he checked out books on fuels and how they work in a quest for power gains for his own racing endeavors. Over the course of time he became a self taught chemist. Armed with the info he was looking for, he began mixing fuel formulas in his parent's garage. Those initial formulations led to C12, a fuel that he convinced Warren Johnson to try back in the early years. Over time C12 became the most popular fuel in NHRA.
In the 1980s, Burns and VP began delving into other fuels with each one having its origins from a custom formulation. Their sole focus has always been race gas and the company's driving philosophy is that one fuel does not fit all. To date they have almost 70 blends.
In 2000, VP became the spec fuel of NHRA but before that drag racers had a choice. The growth of VP's drag racing business led it down the path of developing fuels for other markets such as circle track and motocross.
In the process of developing formulations for specific applications VP will often adapt one to another. For example, during the development of its Late Model Plus which targets Dirt Late Model applications, engineers found that the fuel blend was well suited for off-road racing because of the similar environments faced by the racers.
Now distributed internationally, VP plays a significant role in the landscape of oval track racing. Constantly innovating and developing new formulations for an ever widening marketplace.