DELRAY BEACH, Fla. (September 24, 2013)— Only four races remain in the 2013 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series, and the Kalitta Motorsports Tequila Patrón Toyota Camry Funny Car team is eager to get their hands on the most coveted trophy in all of drag racing before the season comes to a close- the NHRA Wally.
Despite being plagued with a string of first round losses over the past several races, Team Patrón has seen a major turnaround in the car’s performance- including a career best run of 4.027-seconds in Charlotte earlier this month- and these days, clean, straight 1,000-foot passes are the norm for the black and green team. “We’ve made some good runs over these past few races. We’re chipping away at it, and as long as we continue to keep heading in the right direction, a win is not out of reach before the season is over,” said Alexis DeJoria, who has amassed a final and four semi-final showings in her brief two year nitro Funny Car career.
As the team heads to Gateway Motorsports Park for the 2nd annual AAA Insurance NHRA Midwest Nationals this week, they know that the competition is fierce and with the Countdown pressure building for many teams, there is no room for error. “The team is doing a great job, Alexis is doing a great job; everything is really coming together,” said crew chief and 2011 World Champion tuner Tommy DeLago.
“Missing out on those two crucial qualifying runs [due to rain cancellations] on Friday this past weekend in Dallas kind of hurt us. On Saturday, we had to be somewhat conservative because we didn’t have those two Friday runs to get us qualified, which kind of put us behind the eight ball for race day. We weren’t able to really push it and see what the track could handle because we were just focused on getting qualified. I think we could’ve gone a lot further on race day had we not been rained out on Friday. But that’s in the past. The good news is, the car is doing what we want it to do- we’ve been very consistent, and consistency is what wins races in the long term.”
“I think St. Louis will be a great race for us. I went to the finals there last year [as crew chief for Matt Hagan], and hopefully I’ll be able to lead Team Patrón to our first 2013 final round there this year.”
The Kalitta Motorsports Tequila Patrón Toyota Camry Funny Car team begins qualifying for the 2nd annual AAA Insurance NHRA Midwest Nationals at 3:30 PM CST on Friday, September 27. For more information, please visit www.alexisdejoria.com. Follow us on Twitter: @ADR_Nitro771 and Like Us on Facebook: Alexis DeJoria.
TV Schedule
Qualifying
September 28, TBD
ESPN2
Eliminations
September 29, 8:30PM-11:30PM EST
ESPN2
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 race car driver, competing in the nitro Funny Car class on the Kalitta Motorsports team. Alexis drives a Tequila Patrόn-sponsored 2013 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.