DeJORIA PILOTS CAMRY TO BRAINERD FUNNY CAR WIN

BROWN ADVANCES TO FIFTH CONSECUTIVE TOP FUEL FINAL

Brainerd, MN – Alexis DeJoria drove her Tequila Patrón Toyota Camry to victory over Tommy Johnson Jr. in the Funny Car final to win the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals at Brainerd International Raceway in Brainerd, Minnesota, Sunday. The victory is the second for a Camry Funny Car in the last three races.

DeJoria defeated Tim Wilkerson and Cruz Pedregon in her opening two runs of the day, setting up a semi-final match-up with John Force.  She led the entire way in defeating Force, 3.892-3.909 to advance to her first final round of the season.  In the final, Johnson held a lead of under one-hundredth of a second through the 660-foot mark before DeJoria powered past to win by .004 seconds.

“The last two years have been really difficult,” DeJoria said. “Lots of ups and downs, injuries, no wins, we just couldn’t get up to speed with everybody else. We were fighting so hard out there and you start to lose yourself in it. You start to forget the love that you had in the beginning. It’s times like those that make this so much better. You really appreciate every moment. This is a huge win for us.”

In Top Fuel, Antron Brown advanced to his fifth consecutive final round and his eighth in the last 10 races. Brown defeated fellow Toyota driver Shawn Langdon in the first round, Brittany Force in round two and Steve Torrence in the semi-finals, setting up a match with Leah Pritchett in the final.

Brown had an .024 lead at the light, but lost traction midway down the track to finish as the runner-up, but he did extend his championship point lead to 31 heading into the final race of the regular season.

“Hats off to my team and credit goes to Todd Okahara and all of the Papa John’s team,” said Brown. “That .68 was impressive there. We were pressing for that, too.  My team got the car back together. We nuked our clutch in the semi-finals and broke a few levers and we put a brand new hat in it. We were racing it hard, but we were just a little aggressive there in the final. We are going to get it right for Indy. To make it to five consecutive finals in a row, we’re super stoked. We’ve been versatile and adapting to all these different situations.  Thanks for all the support from our Matco Distributors and everyone from the U.S. Army and Toyota.  We just need to keep pushing and doing what we’re doing and stay in the hunt.”

Doug Kalitta also advanced past the first round in Top Fuel today in registering an opening round victory over Terry Haddock.  He was defeated on a hole-shot by Torrence in round two, despite putting down an impressive .055 light – one of the quickest of the day, only to see Torrence record a .029 reaction time.

In addition to Langdon’s first round loss to Brown, Troy Coughlin Jr., was knocked out by Tony Schumacher in the opening round.  Coughlin enters the regular season finale just eight points ahead of Langdon for the 10th spot in the Countdown to the Championship playoffs.

Rounding out out the Camry Funny Car contingent, Pedregon defeated Matt Hagan in the opening round before falling to DeJoria in round two.  J.R. Todd was defeated in the first round by series point leader Ron Capps, while Del Worsham lost to Courtney Force in round one as well.

The NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series will close out the regular season at the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis on Labor Day weekend before opening the Countdown to the Championship playoffs, September 15-17 in Charlotte, N.C.