Rikard Gustafsson
words and photos by Ivan Sansom and Rose Hughes
The FIM-E drag racing community is in mourning after the loss of Rikard Gustafsson following an accident during a demonstration in his home town of Falkenberg, Sweden. Rikard was a six time FIM-E Top Fuel Bike champion, his 2025 title being the fourth in succession and a dominating performance at last weekend’s Main Event at Santa Pod Raceway indicated he was embarking on a solid title defence this year.
Rikard joined the European tour two decades ago with a GS Suzuki Funnybike that quickly propelled him into the sharp end of the world’s best for the turbocharged breed, competing and often winning against the higher horsepower nitro fuelled bikes and taking his first FIM-E Top Fuel points title in 2006 (adding a FIM-E Funny Bike Cup title in 2011).
After six years of building a new ride, Rikard and the RG Engineering team quickly got to grips with the supercharged nitro bike ride on FIM-E debut in 2016, finishing second in the points in his first year on pop. Moving up to top spot in the championship in 2017, the team headed to the USA to dip into the five second zone for the first time. 2018 kicked off with Rikard being the first rider over 250mph in Europe, but a championship charge was curtailed by an accident in Germany and a rebuild was completed for the start of the following year. From 2022 onwards, Rikard became the major force in the class, culminating in the elapsed time record of 5.638 seconds at last year’s European Finals (to add to his 260.65mph/419.48kph terminal speed record from 2023), just one highlight of a weekend as good as any team has produced in Top Fuel Bike action on a global stage.
Above and beyond the world class performances outlined above, Rikard will be remembered as tough competitor on track and great friend always willing to give advice and assist his competitors in the pits.
Our thoughts are with his team (the core of which were friends who met at school in Falkenberg) and family, and the spectator who was injured in the incident.
Rest in peace Rikard, you will be sorely missed.
