Steve and Sue Christophersen were inducted into the Michigan Motor Sports Hall of Fame as part of the 2024 inductee class. The Christophersens hold a number of records in racing and are both members of the 200 MPH Club in Bonneville. Photos provided

By Megan Kelley
Editor
mkelley@mihomepaper.com
INDEPENDENCE TWP. — Steve and Sue Christophersen like to go fast, literally. Over the years, the two have found themselves traveling various race tracks at over 200 miles per hour.
Recently, the couple were honored by being inducted into the Michigan Motor Sports Hall of Fame for the numerous land speed records they had each broken.
Steve and Sue are both included in the 200 MPH Club at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, being one of the few husband and wife teams to do so. They have also gotten involved in drag racing with a rear engined rail and raced a nostalgia funny car called SusieQ which has reached 218 mph.
“We are hobbyists. We’re local level racers and for many years, we just went down to Milan (Michigan) with our dragster and race bracket called bracket racing. And then in 2010 we built an alcohol funny car, which looks like a 57 Chevy, but the whole body lifts up at the back and it has a very high powered motor – goes over 200 miles an hour and runs on alcohol fuel,” Sue said. “I was the driver. There’s not a lot of women driving alcohol funny cars.”
Steve found his passion for racing in 1988 while working as a crew member at Bonneville. In 1992, Steve hit 229.750 mph and joined the 200 MPH Club.
When he and Sue met, his passion became hers as well.
The two were married in 1994 and honeymooned in Bonneville.
Just four years later, in the same weekend Sue set the record in D/Production, hitting 214.047 mph and Steve set the record in D/GLAT, hitting 219.740 mph.
“We had a team of six, starting out with four, then we had a couple more people join our team and we all took turns driving the car on different occasions and set 11 land speed records out there with the car,” Sue said. “There’s an organization called the 200 Mile an Hour Club, if you drive out there and you exceed an existing land speed record and then you return on the same track, either the same day or the next day, and you back it up and the two way average is above the existing record miles an hour, then you get to be a lifetime member of this 200 Mile an Hour Club. It’s a very prestigious organization to be part of.”
Sue also reflected on her experience driving for the first time.
“The first time I got into the dragster, my inclination was, as soon as the car took off, to take my foot off the gas, but you have to have mental concentration. And then when we went to Bonneville and I got to drive the Camaros on the salt flat, that’s a whole different experience, because you’re not just taking a short squirt, you’re on. You’re in the car for five miles or more, and we had a car that I had to shift, I had to put the clutch in, I had to shift and I put the clutch in. I had to do this using the tachometer, shift at the right time and the car was almost – as it got up to over 200 miles an hour, the car felt like driving on a winter road in Michigan,” Sue recalled. “You just learn how to kind of keep steering and don’t have any rash movement. You can’t move the gas pedal quickly, you have to gradually go on and off it. You have to steer very gently to keep going straight.
“But the feeling I had getting off the race track the first time I completed a full pass at the salt flats – you get out there, you’re the only one there. Everybody has to catch up to get down to where you’ve gotten off the track – and you’re by yourself, totally silent, totally quiet. You’ve got all this adrenaline running through you and I get out of the car, and it’s like, ‘I did it, I did it.’ And you feel so exhilarated because you accomplished that. You completed that run safely.”
Over his tenure, Steve set five different records on five different occasions, becoming a well decorated motorist.
However, in 2020, Steve suffered a stroke, taking away most of his ability to communicate and keeping him from working on cars.
The inductees were revealed last November just after the pair celebrated their 30th anniversary in August.
“It was quite a special feeling to have all this happen. Especially since it’s been a rough couple of years since my husband had the stroke,” Sue said.
While both Steve and Sue are fairly accomplished drivers, it came as a surprise when they were notified of their induction into the Michigan Motor Sports Hall of Fame.
“I knew they were looking at Steve. I did not know they were looking at us as a couple. So, it was a shock. You know, it was a surprise that we were being recognized,” Sue said. “When we look at the list of people who have been inducted over the years – we’re just absolutely honored to be a part of this company, of all these other people that we look up to and that we know their accomplishments.”
Now, the pair have taken a new role in the world of racing, one as spectators.
“We’re definitely going to continue to be spectators and to go out and watch our friends race who are still racing,” Sue said. “We’ve had to sell everything. We sold our race car and we sold our race trailer and everything that went with it. But we still go to Milan, and we’ve still gone to US 131 and watched our friends race.”
While Sue and Steve have essentially retired from racing, Sue encourages people to get involved in the sport.
“I would absolutely encourage anyone (to get involved). It can be very expensive, right? You have to be mature enough to get your priorities straight, because some people get in over their heads, but it is what almost everybody that races says,” said Sue. “It’s not just about racing and going down the track and being competitive. What most people love about this sport is the camaraderie. There are so many friends that you make and your biggest competitor will come over and help you fix your car if you need something done to go back out there and get on the starting line again. It’s a community like nothing else I’ve experienced.”
Sue added that the sport can always use more women and more young people.
“There’s something called Junior Dragsters and the NHRA (National Hot Rod Association) started it years and years ago, and so many girls have gotten into the sport now because the Junior Dragsters, they’re small. They actually only race a mile and some of them go over 70 miles an hour. Some of them don’t, but kids get a chance to see what it’s really like to race,” Sue said. “I love to see the girls racing and I love to see them getting hooked on the sport, because there’s one thing about drag racing, different than I think a lot of other sports and activities, is the girls and the boys. It makes no difference. You can drive a race car if you have your mind set on it. It takes a lot of mental acuity, right? It takes concentration. It takes commitment to focusing on building your skills as a driver. But it makes absolutely no difference what gender is behind the wheel.”