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00:00:00 Intro
00:01:21 Alexis DeJoria Joins
00:02:30 Hooked on Drag Racing
00:04:30 Her Start in Drag Racing
00:07:12 Funny Car Debut
00:09:44 Speeding Ticket
00:10:10 2014 Breakout Year
00:11:30 Success
00:17:55 John Force Racing
00:20:37 Bandero Tequila
00:21:13 John DeJoria – Patron
00:23:55 SIM Drag Racing
00:26:04 New NHRA Races
00:31:00 Daily Driver
00:36:02 Where Cars Sold
00:36:51 ’80 AMC Concord
00:38:02 ’72 Mach 1
00:38:52 ’50 Dodge Truck
00:39:22 ’76 Datsun Truck
00:40:16 ’57 T-Bird
00:40:50 ’68 Bronco

NHRA Funny Car Driver Alexis DeJoria joins Stewart Howden on Episode 232 of the weekly Classic Auto Mall Show. Alexis talks about joining the John Force Race Team for the 2026 NHRA Drag Racing Season that starts in March at the Gatornationals in Gainesville, Florida.

She tells Stewart how Wally Parks started the NHRA to get drag racing off the streets and give people a safe place to race. She worked for the family business but her Dad knew she really wanted to drag race. She talks about going to a drag racing school to learn how to drive and get licensed to drive. She tells Stewart how she got started racing Super Gas and worked her way up to Top Alcohol Dragster, winning in every class until she was able to make the jump to Funny Car. She even went to the Skip Barber Driving School, but the road racing didn’t get her as excited as a Nitro Funny Car. She tells Stewart what it’s like to drive a Nitro Funny Car and smelling the fumes even though they wear an oxygen system.

Racing for Kalitta Motorsports, DeJoria made her professional Funny Car debut at the 2011 Dallas event. Her first career Funny Car win came in 2014 at the Arizona Nationals in Phoenix and was quickly followed that season by a win in Las Vegas and a victory at the historic 60th annual U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis. She then went on to pick up victories in Las Vegas (2016) and Brainerd, Minn. (2017) before she took a two-season hiatus from racing in 2018-2019. Ahead of the 2026 season, it was announced that DeJoria would join the esteemed 24-time championship winning John Force Racing organization where she will be the first female driver outside of the Force family to pilot a JFR car.

John Force and Del Worsham signed her funny car license and Del Worsham was her crew chief. She tells Stewart about showing a police officer her NHRA Funny Car License when she got a ticket. It didn’t work for her and she still got a ticket, but her Mom once told a cop that her daughter was a race car driver and they officer let her go.

They talk about her breakout year being 2014 when she won four NHRA Funny Car Races including winning the US Nationals at its 60th Anniversary where she beat John Force in the finals. And the Kalitta Race Team were all standing and watching at the starting line and they all dog piled on top of each other when she won. She was the 2nd female after Ashley Force to win the US Nationals. She was the first female to make a sub 4 second pass. They discuss John Force winning 16 NHRA Funny Car Championship Season Titles.

Stewart asks her about talking to the crew before the race while sitting in the Funny Car. They also talk about Simulated Racing and using a practice tree for reaction times between rounds at the race track. She tells Stewart about joining John Force Racing for the 2026 season and the amount of equipment and extra parts and bodies and the experienced crew chief.
She jokes how her Dad called her The Elvira Girl because she had black hair and he would forget her name. John Force is running a four car team with extra parts and bodies for all the cars. The discuss the importance and popularity of Don The Snake Prudhomme and Tom The Mongoose McEwen and that even their car haulers were famous.

She talks about Bandero Tequila being her sponsor, specifically their Bandero Café which is a Tequila Coffee. It’s great for making martinis and simply replace the vodka with the Bandero Tequila. Alexis and Stewart talk about her father John Paul DeJoria who co-founded John Paul Mitchell Systems and Paul Mitchell Hair Product with Paul Mitchell in 1980 and later co-founded Patron Spirits Company, which was famous for their Tequila. He sold Patron to Bacardi in 2018 for $5.1 Billion. John DeJoria has recently started Weber Ranch Vodka with Ed Brown who was a manager of Patron. It is the only vodka made with Agave and is also gluten free. John DeJoria also started Bandero Tequila. In blind taste tests people prefer Bandero to Patron.