POMONA, Calif. (February 8, 2015)— After qualifying in the No. 11 spot at the Circle K NHRA Winternationals, Alexis DeJoria and the Patrón XO Cafe Incendio Toyota Camry Funny Car team suffered a disappointing first round loss at Auto Club Raceway in Pomona, Calif. on Sunday morning.
With one qualifying run lost due to persistent rain, the team’s 4.085-second run from Q2 ended up as their best of the weekend, solidifying their spot in the 16-car Round One ladder at the season-opening event. They were hoping to use Q4 as their ‘hero run’ and make a pass that would qualify them in the top half of the field, but Mother Nature had other plans and they never had a chance to improve upon their standing.
The team, which debuted their new XO Cafe Incendio livery over the weekend, faced Ron Capps in the first round of eliminations on Sunday morning. It was a close race, and both DeJoria and Capps made good, solid runs in their 10,000-horsepower nitro-burning machines, but Capps had a slight starting line advantage and was able to take the round win on a holeshot, running a 4.137 to her 4.110-second run.
“It’s the first race of the season. Qualifying was kind of like my shakedown runs since we didn’t test during the off-season, but we made a good solid run during Q2 that got us into the field,” said DeJoria, a three time Funny Car event winner, and first woman to make a three-second Funny Car run.
“It was just one of those things today,” she added. “Capps and his team did a good job as well; he just beat me by a little bit on the starting line. We both had really good runs, going all the way down the track, it just wasn’t enough to get that first round win of the season unfortunately.”
“We have another race in two weeks. We’re returning to Phoenix as the defending champions and hopefully we can back that up and pick up our first 2015 win out there.”
The NHRA Winternationals marked the first event of the 24-race NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series. Alexis DeJoria and the Patrón XO Cafe Incendio Toyota Camry Funny Car team compete next at the Carquest Auto Parts NHRA Nationals in Phoenix, Ariz, February 20-22. For more information, please visit www.alexisdejoria.com, Follow Us on Twitter @ADRnhra, or Like Us on Facebook Alexis DeJoria.
About Alexis DeJoria
Alexis DeJoria, daughter of the famed John Paul DeJoria, co-founder of John Paul Mitchell Systems and proud owner of Tequila Patrόn, is a professional NHRA racecar driver, competing in the nitro Funny Car class on the Kalitta Motorsports team. Alexis drives the Patrόn XO Cafe Incendio-sponsored 2015 Toyota Camry. Alexis, who had all the opportunity in the world to pursue any type of career, felt strongly about following her passion, and her need for adrenaline drove her to pursue the unlikely profession of auto-racing. The determination to ‘blaze her own trail’ continues to drive her and push her to higher levels in male dominated sport of drag racing.
About Kalitta Motorsports
Based in Ypsilanti, Mich., Kalitta Motorsports is a Top Fuel and Funny Car drag racing team in the NHRA (National Hot Rod Association) Mello Yello Drag Racing Series. The team was founded and is owned by drag racing icon Connie “the Bounty Hunter” Kalitta. For more than 50 years, Connie has been involved in the sport as a driver, tuner, and an owner. Kalitta Motorsports is one of the most successful teams in the history of auto racing with five world championships and over 50 national event titles in five different professional drag racing sanctioning bodies since it was established by Connie in 1959.