After a frustrating first-round loss on Sunday at the NHRA Sonoma Nationals, Bandero Premium Tequila Toyota GR Supra pilot Alexis DeJoria addressed the team’s recent race-day struggles and shared their plan to put themselves back in position to contend for the 2024 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series Funny Car championship when the playoffs kick off in early September.
DeJoria had a successful first day of qualifying at the annual wine country event when she clocked a 3.920-second at 331.28 mph pass during the Friday night session under the Sonoma Raceway lights. She then closed out qualifying on Saturday with another solid pass of 3.919 seconds at 326.63 mph to place her eighth on Sunday’s elimination ladder. DeJoria opened race day with a first-round match versus Paul Lee where she used her quick reflexes to score the holeshot advantage. Unfortunately, DeJoria’s lead was short-lived as her car started to haze the tires while Lee made his quickest pass of the weekend in the opposite lane to advance, ending DeJoria’s day after the first round for the fourth consecutive event.
“It’s frustrating, we’re a really good team and we’re better than this,” said No. 11 ranked DeJoria, who has two events left to secure a starting position in the Funny Car Top 10. “Del (Worsham) and I have been struggling with this car for a minute so obviously there’s an issue that we need to handle. We’re just going down the list and crossing off all of the possibilities of what could be plaguing us, and we’re down to the last two. One of those things is we’re going to front-half the car between now and Brainerd. We’re going to go through our clutch systems. We’ve got four qualifying runs in Brainerd, we’re going to give it our all, but we’re thinking between front-halving the car and taking a close look at our clutch systems, that should be the fix we’re looking for.”
Through the first 12 events of the 20-race NHRA schedule, DeJoria has one final round appearance, but she’s not letting the team’s lack of win lights detract from her unwavering focus of achieving the ultimate goal – becoming the sport’s first female Funny Car world champion.
“It’s been a struggle this year,” DeJoria said. “But, in years past, it seemed like we peaked early and then when the Countdown would happen, we’d taper off so hopefully this year, it’ll be the opposite. You never want to peak early and we’re hopeful that everything will come together for us at the right time of the season.”
DeJoria will begin the NHRA Brainerd Nationals, the penultimate event of the NHRA’s regular season, sitting a mere five points out of 10th place, and within one round win of the No. 8 ranked driver. She will look to narrow the points gap when qualifying for the Brainerd, Minnesota event kicks off at 4:30 p.m. CT on Friday, August 16.
This story was originally published on July 29, 2024. 
