Jordan Vandergriff and the Cornwell Tools Chevrolet SS Funny Car team have already achieved many milestones in the Funny Car driver\u2019s rookie season but their participation in this week\u2019s NHRA Brainerd Nationals at Brainerd International Raceway or the entire season may not have happened if it weren\u2019t for his performance there last year.<\/p>\n
It was at Brainerd in August 2025 that Vandergriff made the first of two starts for injured Top Fuel driver Shawn Reed. Vandergriff hadn\u2019t raced since the 2019 season, so it had been more than five years since he\u2019d driven in competition and having spent that season and the one previous as a trackside reporter for NHRA on FOX.<\/p>\n
\u201cLife is crazy and what a difference a year can make,\u201d said Vandergriff. \u201cLast year, under unfortunate circumstances, I was fortunate enough to get back into the race car and I still thank Shawn Reed and Shawn Reed Racing for the opportunity. It was a long time out of the seat, and I was just so honored and excited to get back in the seat at Brainerd. I had never driven at Brainerd before and, looking back on it, it was the best weekend of my life up to that point. I was getting the opportunity to drive again. Now, coming into Brainerd with John Force Racing, my life has changed drastically in an extremely positive way. Last year in Brainerd was good so our goal is to make this year even better by coming home with the\u00a0Wally.\u201d<\/p>\n
The third generation drag racer made the best of the opportunity. He qualified third and then earned the round one win against Kyle Satenstein (3.778 seconds to 3.851) before bowing out in the second round to Clay Millican (3.715 seconds to 3.726).<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it opened a lot of eyes when I won that first round in Brainerd,\u201d Vandergriff said. \u201cI think people realized, hey, maybe he can do this still and I proved to myself that I can still do it. Deep down, I knew I could, but you never know until you get back\u00a0in. So, winning that first round proved to a lot of people and to myself that I still had it.\u201d<\/p>\n
His performance at Brainerd and two weeks later at the Cornwell Quality Tools U.S. Nationals helped catapult him into where he is today, driving for John Force Racing and just 54 points out of first place with two races remaining on the regular season championship schedule.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had confidence in myself, in Chris Cunningham and Jason Bunker (crew chiefs) and this entire Cornwell Quality Tools Funny Car team,\u201d said Vandergriff. \u201cI knew if we hit the ground running, like we did in pre-season testing, we were going to have a good shot at it. Being at John Force Racing, we have everything we need to win and be competitive, so I think I knew that we\u2019d be near the top. Now that we\u2019re here, within striking distance of first place, I think it\u2019s a little more real now. I think we\u2019re exactly where we should be. We\u2019ve won two races and I think we are a top contender for not just the regular season championship, but the overall championship as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Qualifying will feature two rounds at 3:30 and 6:00 p.m. CT on Friday, Aug. 21 and the final two rounds of qualifying on Saturday, Aug. 22 at 12:00 and 2:30 p.m. Final eliminations are scheduled for 11:00 a.m. CT on Sunday, Aug. 23.<\/p>\n
Television coverage includes qualifying action on FS1 at 7:00 p.m. ET on Friday and 10:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, and eliminations at 6:30 p.m. ET Sunday.<\/p>\n
The post Brainerd a Key Turning Point in Jordan Vandergriff\u2019s Career<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jordan Vandergriff and the Cornwell Tools Chevrolet SS Funny Car team have already achieved many milestones in the Funny Car driver\u2019s rookie season but their participation in this week\u2019s NHRA Brainerd Nationals at Brainerd International Raceway or the entire season may not have happened if it weren\u2019t for his performance there last year. It was […]<\/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-104588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104588","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=104588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104588\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}