![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dragillustrated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Jordan-Vandergriff.jpg\")
Vandergriff beat DeJoria in round one with the second-quickest run of the event at the time, 3.999 seconds, but lost lane choice for round two to Ron Capps who ran 3.989 seconds. Vandergriff had a fantastic reaction time (.043 to Capps\u2019 .065), but Capps ran low elapsed time of the meet with his run of 3.980 seconds at 327.43 mph to Vandergriff\u2019s 4.040 seconds at 285.29 mph.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an interesting weekend for this Cornwell Quality Tools Funny Car team,\u201d said Vandergriff. \u201cThe track was tricky all weekend. The heat was tricky all weekend. I struggled driving so to salvage a round win out of this weekend was huge for us. Unfortunately, that win was over our teammate Alexis in the Bandero Chevy. We had a good running race car on Sunday but it was definitely not the way we wanted to end it with one of the pan pressure switches shutting off the engine early as it started scuffing a piston. We\u2019ve diagnosed the problem and we\u2019re going to work on it this week. So, all in all, good weekend and the end of my first three in a row.\u201d<\/p>\n
DeJoria and Vandergriff lined up against each other in round one, with Bandero Caf\u00e9 Chevrolet SS Funny Car having lane choice over the Cornwell Tools Chevrolet SS Funny Car as a result of DeJoria\u2019s No. 2 qualifying position. Vandergriff\u2019s reaction time was seven-thousandths-of-a-second quicker (.058 to .065) and the Cornwell Tools Chevy ripped off the quickest Funny Car run of the event to that point of 3.999 seconds at 322.88 mph to DeJoria\u2019s third quickest run of the session at 4.028 second run at 326.24 mph.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a great drag race and it\u2019s just the luck of the draw,\u201d said DeJoria. \u201cUnfortunately, we had to go up against our teammate. The Bandero Chevy ran great. I didn\u2019t see them all the way down. I thought for sure I was gonna see my win light come on. I asked what he ran and they said a 3.99. That\u2019s a good run against our 4.02 so it was a great race. There\u2019s nothing we else we could have done. We weren\u2019t trying to rotate the earth, just trying to lay down a solid number, and that\u2019s what exactly we did. We\u2019ll get a week off and then go to Norwalk. I\u2019m looking forward to the rest of this year. This is my first year with John Force Racing and we\u2019ve had some really great success. I know that at any one of these races, we\u2019re gonna be leaving with a Wally. Unfortunately, it didn\u2019t happen here.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the first pair of cars down the track, the Speedmaster Top Fuel Dragster had lane choice and Hart grabbed the holeshot by 14 thousandths of a second (.056 to .070) over Doug Kalitta. Unfortunately, an engine cylinder stopped firing shortly after the hit, slowing the run to 3.845 seconds at 321.12 mph to Kalitta\u2019s 3.799 seconds at 330.31 mph.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t get into racing for the fame and I surely didn\u2019t do it for fortune,\u201d said Hart. \u201cMy motivation has and will always be exceeding my own expectations and conquering the career goals I have for myself. The Speedmaster team wants to win and not just one. We want them all. Thank you for all the love from the John Force Racing and NHRA fans and we\u2019ll be right back at it in Norwalk in two weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 10th\u00a0of 20 races of the 2026 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series is the June 26-28 Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals at Summit Racing Equipment Motorsports Park in Norwalk, Ohio.<\/p>\n
The post Uncharacteristic Early exit for John Force Racing at Super Grip NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rain wasn\u2019t the only black cloud hanging over John Force Racing on Sunday at Bristol Dragway as all four of its teams were eliminated after the second round of competition in the Super Grip NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals. The PEAK Chevrolet SS Funny Car team of Jack Beckman and the Cornwell Tools Chevrolet SS Funny […]<\/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-103960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103960","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=103960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103960\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}