Jordan Vandergriff has never participated in the four-wide format in the nitro categories at zMAX Dragway, but that doesn\u2019t diminish the confidence he and the Cornwell Tools Chevrolet SS Funny Car team has rolling into the April 24-26 NHRA 4-Wide Nationals.<\/p>\n
\u201cI raced at Charlotte in an alcohol\u00a0dragster once, but this will be my first time in the four-wide concept so it\u2019s going to be a new experience for me,\u201d said Vandergriff. \u201cI don\u2019t really know what to expect yet but I think I\u2019m going to have a lot of those experiences this year so I\u2019m just going to go for it.\u00a0I have the benefit of working on NHRA on FOX the last\u00a0two years. Being at these races and watching the procedures, I\u2019ve been told many things by many different people already, so I think I\u2019m very prepared for it. I know Lanes 2 and 3 are more difficult so I know what I\u2019m looking for already. It\u2019s going to be a different feel, but I\u2019ll be ready for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLanes 2 and 3 are difficult because you\u2019re looking across the Christmas Tree,\u201d Vandergriff added. \u201cIn Lane 2, your tree is to your left, and your stage bulb is the 2nd bulb on the left so you\u2019re looking all the way across the tree. In Lane 3, your bulb would be the 3rd bulb on your right all the way to the\u00a0right. So it\u2019s kind of a longer view for Lanes 2 and 3. Lanes 1 and 4 are the easier ones because you\u2019re just looking right at your\u00a0bulb. I think I\u2019m going to take a little more of my time because you never know when other people are going to go in and, with four of us, it\u2019s going to be a little longer anyway, so I might as well take an extra second for myself, too.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Atlanta-area resident has powerful reason for the confidence. He established a personal best speed record, 334.57 mph, in Round 1 of eliminations at the Winternationals and ran 330+ mph en route to his second-round victory. In the semifinal matchup against three-time NHRA Funny Car World Champion and eventual event runner-up Ron Capps, Vandergriff grabbed the holeshot (.069 to .077) and then made his career-best run 3.889 seconds but Capps took the win with a run of 3.863 seconds.<\/p>\n
Vandergriff and his John Force Racing team are currently fifth in the 2026 Funny Car standings after a semifinal finish in the season-opener at Gainesville, a second-round showing at Phoenix and semifinal finish at Pomona.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel great about how this year has gone so far,\u201d said Vandergriff. \u201cThis Cornwell Quality Tools Funny Car has really been running well and that\u2019s thanks to Chris Cunningham, Jason Bunker, and all of my guys. We\u2019re sitting fifth in the points, and I think we\u2019re coming off our strongest race in Pomona. We qualified third, made it to the semis, and only got beat by the quickest ET (elapsed time) of the whole event. So, coming out of Pomona, I think Charlotte, with the four-wide format, gives us a chance to possibly be holding one of those diamond Wally\u2019s at the end of the weekend.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Vandergriff and the Cornwell Tools team qualified to compete in this weekend\u2019s Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty Challenge on the strength of their semifinals finish in Pomona. The event will take place as part of Saturday\u2019s qualifying runs scheduled for 12:50 p.m. and 3:20 p.m.<\/p>\n
The post Jordan Vandergriff Ready for First NHRA 4-Wide Experience<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jordan Vandergriff has never participated in the four-wide format in the nitro categories at zMAX Dragway, but that doesn\u2019t diminish the confidence he and the Cornwell Tools Chevrolet SS Funny Car team has rolling into the April 24-26 NHRA 4-Wide Nationals. \u201cI raced at Charlotte in an alcohol\u00a0dragster once, but this will be my first […]<\/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-103424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103424","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=103424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103424\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}