Alexis DeJoria, the driver of the Bandero Café Funny Car, landed the best qualifying position among her John Force Racing teammates at this weekend’s Super Grip NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals in Bristol, Tennessee. DeJoria, who won this event in 2021, qualified second in the category but made an early exit on race day against her teammate Jordan Vandergriff.
Bristol Motor Speedway recently resurfaced the track at Bristol Dragway and NHRA competitors were eager to begin collecting data on the renovated drag strip. In a sport where data is key, the playing field inevitably evens out when a new element is introduced. The first qualifying opportunity on Friday went up in tire smoke for everyone in the Funny Car category, and the second resulted in more of the same for the Bandero Café team. On Saturday, crew chiefs Mike “Zippy” Neff and Jonnie Lindberg expertly tuned DeJoria’s Chevrolet SS Funny Car, recording an impressive 4.010-second lap at 326.00 mph, the fastest of the session. Her pass solidly placed her in the No. 2 position on the ladder going into race day.
DeJoria had lane choice over Vandergriff, who landed in the No. 13 spot with a run of 4.548 at 191.73, in the opening round of eliminations. The duo launched within seven-thousandths of a second of each other and were neck-and-neck all the way down the track. Ultimately, Vandergriff got to the stripe first, making the first sub-four-second Funny Car pass of the weekend, a 3.999 at 322.88, to defeat DeJoria, who was right on his heels with a 4.028 E.T. at 326.24.
“I didn’t see him (Vandergriff) all the way down, so I thought for sure I was going to see my win light turn on,” remarked DeJoria. “Right away, I heard Jonnie on the radio and he said, ‘Sorry, girl. We got outrun.’ I asked what they ran, and he said a 3.99. What can I say? That’s a good run. And against our 4.02, it was a great drag race. There’s nothing else that we could have done. We weren’t trying to rotate the earth but we were trying to lay down a good, solid number. And that’s exactly what we did.”
Despite this small setback, DeJoria is optimistic about the rest of the season with John Force Racing.
“I’m looking forward to the rest of this year. Every one of my JFR teammates has won so far this season. We’ve been to a couple of finals and qualified really well this weekend. I know that at any one of these upcoming races, we’re gonna be leaving with a Wally. I know what we’re capable of and I know that people don’t want to race us because we’ve got it together. I’m proud of the progress we’ve made. Everything’s falling into place and I’m really comfortable in the car, cutting consistent lights and it shows.”
DeJoria will have to wait two weeks before hitting the track again when the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series makes its way to Norwalk, Ohio, for the Summit NHRA Nationals, June 26-28.
