Alexis DeJoria and the John Force Racing Bandero Premium Tequila Funny Car team kicked off the NHRA Nevada Nationals with an impressive qualifying performance and a special livery unveil celebrating Bandero\u2019s new multi-year partnership as the Official Tequila of the Las Vegas Raiders. After debuting the new \u2018Silver and Black\u2019 scheme, DeJoria rocketed to the top of the timing sheets in the opening qualifying session and ultimately secured the No. 4 starting spot in a historic Funny Car field. Unfortunately, an ignition switch malfunction during Sunday\u2019s opening round of eliminations brought the team\u2019s promising weekend to an early end.
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DeJoria\u2019s Nevada Nationals appearance got off to a memorable start on Friday afternoon when iconic Raiders superfans Wayne \u201cViolator\u201d Mabry and Mark Jones, president of the Black Hole fan club, joined her on the starting line to unveil the Bandero team\u2019s new Silver and Black look in front of a packed crowd. DeJoria then fired up her 12,000-horsepower Chevrolet and blasted down the track in 3.874 seconds at 333.33 mph, clocking the quickest run of the round.
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After an early shutoff in Friday\u2019s second session, DeJoria and her Mike Neff\/Jonnie Lindberg-led team returned on Saturday and delivered another strong run of 3.885 seconds. Her opening qualifying performance held up for the No. 4 qualifying position, placing her in the top half of the quickest Funny Car field in NHRA history, with all 16 qualifiers recording three-second runs.
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On Sunday morning, DeJoria lined up against No. 13 qualifier Hunter Green in the opening round of eliminations. Green nabbed the early lead, but DeJoria quickly made up the difference and moved ahead of her opponent. Unfortunately, the ignition switch broke soon after and caused the Bandero Funny Car to lose power near halftrack, allowing Green to drive around DeJoria and take the win with a 3.923-second pass to her 3.931.
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\u201cI have a great team out here, I love these guys, we work well together,\u201d said DeJoria, who has two prior wins at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a strong race car. We came out on Friday for Q1 and ran that 87 in the first round and got three bonus points and it couldn\u2019t have been more perfect because we had just unveiled the new Silver and Black livery celebrating Bandero\u2019s partnership with the Las Vegas Raiders. The Black Hole fan club was out here supporting us, which was really cool. The Raiders have been one of my favorite teams since I was a little girl. I used to go watch them with my mom at the LA Forum, so not only was it really cool to run this special scheme for Bandero, but it was also a really special moment for me personally.
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\u201cWe qualified well this weekend and started from fourth, but the win lights on Sunday have eluded us as of late. So, it\u2019s been frustrating. This last one definitely stung. We had such a strong car going into today but unfortunately, we had a freak thing happen where the ignition switch broke. It nosed me over around halftrack and that was the end of our day. But, I think we\u2019ve got a lot of good luck in the bank right now and we\u2019re building for 2027. Once we do break that seal and get our first win, I truly believe we will be unstoppable. I love this team, we\u2019re in this together and I\u2019ve got their backs, and they\u2019ve got mine. I can\u2019t say enough about Mike Neff and Jonnie Lindberg.\u201d
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DeJoria, who will continue to campaign the Silver and Black Bandero Premium Tequila Funny Car at the season finale, leaves Las Vegas ranked seventh in the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series Funny Car standings. The team will close out the year at the In-N-Out Burger NHRA Finals, Nov. 13-15, at In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip in Pomona, Calif.<\/p>\n
The post DeJoria Debuts \u2018Silver and Black\u2019 Bandero Funny Car, Shows Strong Pace at NHRA Las Vegas Nationals<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Alexis DeJoria and the John Force Racing Bandero Premium Tequila Funny Car team kicked off the NHRA Nevada Nationals with an impressive qualifying performance and a special livery unveil celebrating Bandero\u2019s new multi-year partnership as the Official Tequila of the Las Vegas Raiders. After debuting the new \u2018Silver and Black\u2019 scheme, DeJoria rocketed to the […]<\/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-105164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105164","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=105164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105164\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}