Successful qualifying weekend for Team Patrόn in Brainerd

Brainerd, Minnesota (August 18, 2012)—It was yet another consistent weekend of qualifying for NHRA Funny Car driver Alexis DeJoria and her Kalitta Motorsports Tequila Patrόn Toyota Camry team, whose 4.090-second at 308.92-mph round two run was enough to safely secure her position in the field for tomorrow’s eliminations at the 31st Annual Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals in Brainerd, Minnesota.

Alexis Dejoria

Photo by: Anne Proffit

It was a picture-perfect day as qualifying got underway at Brainerd International Raceway on Friday afternoon. In the weekend opening Funny Car qualifying round, Team Patrόn kicked things off on a high note by securing the number one qualifying spot at the conclusion of round one.

The team, led by crew chief Del Worsham, initially set out to make a conservative run, but ended up with low ET of the session with their 4.120-sec at 300.93-mph pass, which not only set the tone for the weekend, but gave them the advantage of being able to add three ‘Countdown to the Championship’ bonus points to their point total.

With much cooler conditions than they’ve experienced all summer long, Team Patrόn was hopeful that they would continue to do well and stay in the top half of the qualifying field in Q2. By the time the black-and-green machine pulled up to the line for the last pairing of the second round, they had been bumped all the way down to the ninth spot.

They were able to climb back up to the sixth spot with their impressive 4.090-sec at 308.92-mph run, which ended up being their best run of the weekend.

It was another fast day for Funny Cars today, and by the time “La Patrόna” and Team Green pulled up to the line, a handful of cars had broken into the 4.0’s and the Patrόn team was bumped down to the tenth spot. The consistent Camry was set to improve upon their 4.090 run, and were well on their way to doing so until they dropped a cylinder at about 1.2-sec in the run, which slowed the car to a respectable 4.155-sec at 290.57-mph, keeping them in the tenth spot.

“For never having raced here before, I think we did really well in qualifying,” said the rookie driver. “That first round, being in the number one spot was really great. That was the first time we’ve done that all season long and it really gave us a nice boost for the rest of the weekend. We really stepped it up in round two, which was awesome.

Today we went out and tried some different things. We should’ve done better in round three but we dropped that cylinder and then in round four, we just went out and shook so I had to shut her off. We ended up qualifying eleventh when it was all said and done, but overall I’m really happy with how we did. We race John Force, yet again, which should be interesting. Hopefully, we’ll do well and Team Patrόn will come out on top tomorrow!”

The eleventh qualified Tequila Patrόn Toyota Camry team faces number six qualifier John Force in the first round of eliminations tomorrow at the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals in Brainerd, Minnesota. Funny Car eliminations begin at 11AM.

Source: Alexis DeJoria Racing