Team Patrón Just Shy of Round One Win in St. Louis

MADISON, Ill. (September 29, 2013)— After making three solid qualifying runs throughout Friday and Saturday at the 2nd annual AAA Insurance NHRA Midwest Nationals at Gateway Motorsports Park, the Kalitta Motorsports Tequila Patrón Toyota Camry Funny Car team faced reigning world champion Jack Beckman in round one of eliminations on Sunday morning.

As the final pair in the competitive Funny Car class to fire up their engines in the first round, No. 9 qualifier Alexis DeJoria and opponent Beckman, who qualified eighth, left the line with identical reaction times. DeJoria powered her black and green Toyota Camry down the drag strip in an exciting ‘nail biter’ of a race. The two cars ran side-by-side down the track, glued together, until just past the 60-foot mark when Beckman started to inch away, eventually setting off the win light with his 4.079-second run to DeJoria’s 4.110-sec pass.

“We ran well in the first round today,” said DeJoria. “Jack and I were neck-and-neck pretty much the whole way down. I didn’t see him at all out of my peripheral, but when I crossed the stripe and my win light didn’t come on, I knew that was the end of our day.”

 

“Overall, Team Patrón made some solid runs this weekend. We had some good runs during qualifying, and we were excited to be running in the cooler weather here in St. Louis and seeing what our car can do at this point. We’re continuing to make good progress- we just need to get past first round.”

The Kalitta Motorsports Tequila Patrón Toyota Camry Funny Car team will have another chance at going after the NHRA Wally trophy in cooler weather conditions next weekend when they visit Reading, Penn. to compete in the 29th annual Auto-Plus NHRA Nationals at Maple Grove Raceway, October 4-6. For more information, please visit www.alexisdejoria.com. Follow us on Twitter: @ADR_Nitro771 and Like Us on Facebook: Alexis DeJoria

TV Schedule

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.