It was at In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip that John Force Racing\u2019s Jordan Vandergriff got his first taste of the sensory overload that is NHRA drag racing and it\u2019s there during the April 8-10 NHRA Winternationals that the Cornwell Tools Chevrolet SS Funny Car driver hopes earn his first event win in the sanctioning body\u2019s 1,000th Funny Car race.<\/p>\n
This weekend will be the first time the California native has competed in the Winternationals but he does have prior experience at the legendary drag strip. In the last event of his 11-race Top Fuel rookie season, at the 2019 NHRA Finals, Vandergriff beat Austin Prock in Round 1 before losing to Leah Pruett in the second.<\/p>\n
\u201cPomona is my hometown track,\u201d said Vandergriff. \u201cIt\u2019s the track I grew up going to and it holds a special place in my heart because it\u2019s where drag racing was introduced to me. I\u2019ve only run there once before, in my rookie year at the Finals. So, this will be my second time there and I can\u2019t wait to be in the Cornwell Tools Funny Car.<\/p>\n
\u201cPomona was where I first got the feel for the speed and what it was about,\u201d Vandergriff added. \u201cIt was the heyday of Tony Schumacher, when he was winning everything and John Force was winning everything. It was just a different era of drag racing when I was growing up, and now, to be ushering in this new era of drag racing at Pomona is unreal. I can\u2019t wait to go back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vandergriff sits seventh in the Funny Car point standings after the season\u2019s first two races. He earned a semifinals finish at the season-opening Gatornationals in his John Force Racing debut and a second-round showing two weeks later in the Arizona heat.<\/p>\n
Overall, John Force Racing drivers have won 32 times in three events at In-N-Out Pomona Dragstrip (17 times in the Winternationals, 14 times in the Finals plus John Force\u2019s win in the 50th<\/sup>\u00a0Anniversary NHRA Nationals in 2001).<\/p>\n \u201cGetting my first win in the NHRA\u2019s 1000th\u00a0Funny Car race, at my hometown track, would be amazing. I think you couldn\u2019t write a script any better than that, and Hollywood\u2019s not too far away. It just would be unbelievable for it to happen and we\u2019re going there with the idea that it\u2019s going to happen. We have a good Cornwell Tools Chevy, and the weather should come into the wheelhouse, so we\u2019ll be ready. Chris Cunningham and Jason Bunker (crew chiefs) will tune that thing up and I\u2019m going to hop in it and try to get that win.\u201d<\/p>\n The post Jordan Vandergriff Eyes First Funny Car Win in NHRA\u2019s 1,000th<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was at In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip that John Force Racing\u2019s Jordan Vandergriff got his first taste of the sensory overload that is NHRA drag racing and it\u2019s there during the April 8-10 NHRA Winternationals that the Cornwell Tools Chevrolet SS Funny Car driver hopes earn his first event win in the sanctioning body\u2019s 1,000th […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103352\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}