POMONA, Calif. (April 10, 2026) – Jordan Vandergriff and Alexis DeJoria captured the top two spots in Funny Car, Josh Hart sits second in Top Fuel and Jack Beckman was fortunate to have smoked the tires on his second qualifying run in the first day of qualifying for the NHRA Lucas Oil Winternationals at In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip.
All four John Force Racing teams, and the majority of both the Top Fuel and Funny Car competitors, smoked the tires in the first round, making success in the second round that much more critical.
In Q2, Vandergriff and the Cornwell Tools Chevrolet SS Funny Car team threw down low elapsed time of the day with a run of 3.951 seconds at 327.90 mph. DeJoria and the Bandero Café Chevrolet SS Funny Car team were a close second with their run of 3.989 seconds and the top speed of the day of 328.30 mph.
Hart and the Speedmaster Top Fuel team took full advantage of their second opportunity down the track by taking the provisional top spot with a run of 3.733 seconds at 336.15 mph. They held the position through the next three pairs of cars but were eclipsed in the final run of the day when Leah Pruett ran nine-thousandths-of-a-second quicker.
Beckman earned the close call of the day when, in Q2, his opponent, Todd Lesenko, crossed the center line and pulled the parachutes directly in front of the PEAK Chevrolet SS Funny Car. Fortunately, the defending Winternationals Funny Car Champion had smoked the tires at 300 feet and backed out of the throttle, slowing the car enough to allow Beckman to steer clear of any contact. As a result of Lesenko crossing the centerline and tripping the timing lights in Beckman’s lane, both runs were disqualified, leaving Beckman to stand on his Q1 run of 5.471 seconds at 140.30 mph for the 16th position.
Saturday’s qualifying sessions are scheduled for 12:30 and 3 p.m. PT. Sunday eliminations are slated for 11 a.m. PT.
Quote from Jordan Vandergriff, Cornwell Tools Chevrolet SS Funny Car:
“This is definitely a new experience for me. I’ve never been in this position before, but I’m happy to be here. Coming into this race, I just had a feeling we were going to do well. The first two races were so hot, but we knew what we had, especially in testing before the season started. So, coming here we knew that we had a good race car. That second run felt pretty perfect, and now we’re No. 1 so I’m really proud of the Cornwell Tools team.”
“Racing at my home track is very motivating. I have my entire family here, and this is the home track for John Force Racing, too. Pomona has always meant something special. This is where drag racing was introduced to me, and now that I’m here on the same track, it’s pretty surreal.”
Quote from Alexis DeJoria, Bandero Café Chevrolet SS Funny Car:
“The first qualifying session didn’t go so well for the entire Funny Car class but I knew the second run would be better for the Bandero team. We were the second pair out and ran a 3.98, which has us sitting second with two more opportunities to improve tomorrow. That second run today felt really good, just nice and straight all the way down Broadway.”
Quote from Josh Hart, Speedmaster Top Fuel Dragster:
“I’m very proud of the Speedmaster team. I was happy to go A to B. Obviously, the No. 2 spot is perfect. No. 1 would have been all right (smiles) so, going into tomorrow, I’m very confident. We needed to go A to B and we did so we’ll be just fine.”
Quote from Jack Beckman, PEAK Chevrolet SS Funny Car:
“The racetrack was funky in Q1 so we didn’t get good data. We smoked them again in Q2 but the racetrack was much more representative of what we’ll be running on the rest of the weekend so now we know which direction to go. And, if there is a silver lining to smoking the tires in Q2, we were not where we could have been when Todd Lusenko crossed the center line and ended up in our lane there. That was one that could have been bad, that we can wipe our foreheads, point up and say, ‘thank you’.”
TELEVISION SCHEDULE
Television coverage on Sunday, April 12, 2026, includes a qualifying show from 11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m. ET on FS1 and eliminations from 6:30 – 9:30 p.m. ET on FS1.
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