Bandero Café Funny Car driver Alexis DeJoria was six for six at the NHRA Brainerd Nationals, running in the competitive 3.9-second range all weekend long, but her bid for a second Wally trophy from Brainerd International Raceway ended in the quarterfinal round of eliminations when she was defeated by her John Force Racing teammate in a nail-biter of a race.
DeJoria opened the weekend by taking her Bandero Café Chevrolet SS on a 3.969-second ride to earn one bonus point for clocking the third quickest run of the session. In Friday’s second qualifying session, crew chiefs Mike Neff and Jonnie Lindberg tuned DeJoria’s 12,000-horsepower machine to a 3.927, which also held up as the third-quickest elapsed time of the round, placing her fourth after day one of qualifying for the penultimate event of the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series regular season. Two more quick and consistent runs followed on Saturday with DeJoria clocking a 3.943 E.T. in Q3 before powering to her best run of the weekend, a 3.915 E.T. at 326.08 mph, in the final session. By the time qualifying wrapped up, DeJoria had earned a total of four bonus points, including the two she scored for running the second-quickest pass of Q4, and locked in a qualifying position in the top half of the field.
Starting from the No. 8 seed, DeJoria drew No. 9 qualifier Dave Richards as her round-one opponent. Against Richards, DeJoria nabbed the starting line advantage and never trailed for the win, crossing the finish line stripe in 3.927 seconds while Richards lost traction in the opposite lane. The quarterfinals featured an intramural showdown with DeJoria lining up against her John Force Racing stablemate Jordan Vandergriff. The two drivers powered to identical 3.956-second E.T.s in a close side-by-side race, but ultimately, it was Vandergriff’s slight starting line advantage that propelled him through the 1,000-foot beams first and set off the win light in his lane.
“Our Bandero Café Chevrolet SS Funny Car team is at our best right now,” said DeJoria, who became the first Funny Car pilot to clock a sub-four-second pass at BIR in 2014 before being crowned the Brainerd Nationals Funny Car event champ in 2017. “To go out there in qualifying and make all four runs in the 3.90s and then on race day, go past first round with another 3.90, and then another 3.90 in the second round against our teammate shows that we have the consistency. Unfortunately, that round we were a mag short the whole run, so that affected our day, but we know we have what it takes and we’re still building.
“This is a newer team to John Force Racing. We’re going to stay and test tomorrow and get ready for the U.S. Nationals. We’re still solidly in the points for the Countdown to the Championship and I’ll have my family out there supporting us at Indy. I always feel like we do well when we’ve got that extra support, and I’ll take all the luck we can get.”
DeJoria will leave Minnesota ranked eighth in the NHRA Countdown to the Championship standings with one race remaining before positions are set for the six-race playoff series. With the U.S. Nationals’ unique points-and-a-half format, DeJoria has ample opportunity to move up in the standings, with less than two rounds separating her from the current sixth-ranked driver.
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