by Alexis DeJoria Her name is associated with countless broken records and historic successes for women in motorsport, but as a racer, she is not ready to give up the competition. She was the first woman to reach 100 NHRA funny car begins in 2016 and she’ll be 200th next weekend at the Route 66 event in Illinois. But DeJoria was not pleased. She’s poised to be the first woman to win the Funny Car championship, even if that means having to enter one run in 2023 at a time.
“All the work we did last year – all the pain, blood, sweat and tears – paid off this year,” DeJoria said in an exclusive interview with Jalopnik. She smiled as she continued. “And to get close to 200 starts… I had to really sit down and look at that. It’s amazing how quickly time has passed. There are days when I feel like I’ve been here 20 years and other days I feel like ‘What is this? What am I doing?'”
Heading into Route 66 for the weekend, DeJoria is second in the Fun Cars championship and she’s feeling great. After a challenging 2022 season, she and her team worked the knots and found both speed and reliability that could continue into 2023. That’s the morale they needed — and in stark contrast to the seventh place of 2022.
“Last year was brutal,” DeJoria said. “This sport is the most humble sport. My heart is attached to that race car. When the car is doing well, I feel happy. When it doesn’t work well, it’s hard to get over it. Well, you have to get right back into the game. You cannot stop there. But with our special sport, you don’t get a second chance. Every time you’re at the starting line, it’s all or nothing. Every move you make has to be perfect, because you can’t run another step to make up for it.”
Part of that is because she decided to form her own team with crew chief Del Worsham amid the dense COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. As DeJoria put it, “it takes time to build up the information. with a new car and a new team,” because even when the members of that team have a lot of drag racing experience, many are just learning how to work together for the first time.
But in 2023, everything worked out.
“This is our best start to a season,” she said. “In the first four events, we passed the second qualifying three times. We had two semi-finals and one final. We have the best average [elapsed time] During our race day elimination and race weekend, our team ran a career best time pass of 3,854 seconds in 1000 feet.
“When you’re doing well and the car is running well, you just feel energized.”
Despite her family’s ties to the Pátron Tequila empire, DeJoria had to fight to reach the top of the sport with her own courage and skill. The family name alone can’t get six Fun Car wins. That doesn’t guarantee her the ability to become the first woman to pass Funny Car in under four seconds. It does not earn her respect as a safe, reliable, and dedicated competitor.
“I know quite a lot right away [drag racing] is where I’ve been meaning to go, ever since I first watched a race live when I was 16 years old,” she said. “I was successful early on, but when I started doing this, I wanted to win every tier before jumping to the next. I feel that means I’m ready to take that step.”
But for all of that, DeJoria was ready with an answer when I asked what she wanted to tick off her next to-do list.
“Become the first woman to win a championship in Nitro Funny Cars,” she said without hesitation.
With 16 Funny Car events remaining in the 2023 season, there’s plenty of time for DeJoria’s total score to grow — and for fans back home to witness motorsport history in the making. But now, she’s taking it once a day.
“I try not to look too far into the future,” she says. “You have to stay calm in this game. One race at a time. Run once.”
