Jordan Vandergriff Leads John Force Racing Charge Into Seattle After Sonoma Victory

The final stretch of the 2026 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series regular season begins in earnest this weekend at the Muckleshoot Casino Resort NHRA Northwest Nationals, and few organizations have more momentum than John Force Racing.

Fresh off Jordan Vandergriff’s dominant victory at the Sonoma Nationals, JFR heads to Pacific Raceways with multiple drivers positioned to make a strong push before the Countdown to the Championship begins. Vandergriff is emerging as a legitimate Funny Car title contender, Jack Beckman is climbing the standings, Alexis DeJoria returns to one of her favorite tracks, and Josh Hart is focused on finishing the regular season inside the Top Fuel top five.

With only three races remaining before the points reset, Seattle represents another critical opportunity for one of NHRA’s most successful organizations.

Jordan Vandergriff Is No Longer Flying Under The Radar

For much of the season, Jordan Vandergriff could point to his rookie status whenever expectations surfaced.

That excuse no longer exists.

The driver of the Cornwell Tools Chevrolet SS Funny Car arrives in Seattle fresh off his second victory of the season after a commanding performance at Sonoma Raceway. The win gave John Force Racing its 334th professional victory and vaulted Vandergriff into second place in the Funny Car standings, firmly placing him in the conversation for both the regular season championship and the Countdown.

Crew chiefs Chris Cunningham and Jason Bunker have delivered one of the quickest Funny Cars on tour, and Vandergriff believes Sonoma proved exactly what this team is capable of.

“Sonoma was the best weekend so far for the Cornwell Tools Chevrolet team. Chris Cunningham and Jason Bunker (crew chiefs), and all my Cornwell Quality Tools guys gave me an amazing race car. I just sat in the car and tried to do my job and they just did the rest. They gave me the best race car on the property, no doubt about it, from Q2 on and that’s all credit to them. I just get in, hit the gas and keep it straight. It was a very strong weekend for us and I think a strong sign of what’s to come for the rest of the year as we chase down the regular season championship and whole season, as well.”

While the wins have been impressive, Vandergriff says he’s still learning every weekend.

“That new driver in the seat is still a rookie but we’ve performed very well as a team. I’ve had some hiccups here and there but I’ve also had some really good runs and really good days. I think I’ve always known that I had what it takes and now I’m getting a chance to prove it. I’m very fortunate to be a part of John Force Racing and driving this Cornwell Quality Tools Funny Car because they are the best of the best. So, the best place to showcase what you think you have with your talents is the best organization and the best team. It’s all working out and we find ourselves exactly where I think we should be which is 2nd in the points.”

Jack Beckman Returns To One Of His Most Memorable Tracks

Jack Beckman has built a Hall of Fame-caliber Funny Car career, and Pacific Raceways has supplied one of its defining moments.

The PEAK Chevrolet SS driver earned just the third Funny Car victory of his career in Seattle in 2007 by defeating none other than current team owner John Force in a dramatic final-round battle.

It’s a race Beckman still remembers in vivid detail.

“I remember clear as day. I was in the left lane. It was still a quarter-mile track at that time. I’m just watching him slowly driving away from me but as I’m watching him, I’m seeing the flame pattern out of his left-side headers get really erratic. Then, all of a sudden, he stops accelerating and there was just enough racetrack left for me to drive around him before the finish line. If the track was 1,000 feet like now, I never would have caught him. I couldn’t believe it. It was really stunned disbelief. I had pretty much conceded in my mind that we lost to John Force again and then our win light comes on. My son, Jason, was just a few months old and we sat him on the car with the trophy. Obviously, he doesn’t remember, but it is a wonderful memory for me.”

Beckman enters Seattle ranked third in the Funny Car standings after reaching the semifinals in Sonoma, but he left California believing the team should have accomplished even more.

“I think the reason that we’re frustrated is we were clearly the second-best car at Sonoma, which means we should have been in the final next to Jordan and the Cornwell Tools Chevy, but we weren’t. We lost a semifinal round race where our opponent ran a five-second elapsed time. There’s never ‘gimmes’ in nitro racing, and certainly not in Funny Car, but it was a self-inflicted wound for us and we don’t know why. The postmortem didn’t show us anything obvious. Tim Fabrisi (co-crew chief) said if I hadn’t pedaled, they could have done an autopsy on all the clutch disks and maybe seen if one disk had glazed over or started to lose its facing which would have pointed us toward a smoking gun. But because we were still very much in the race, I pedaled it and that would mask any issues with an individual clutch disc. So, we’re frustrated. We underperformed relative to the way our PEAK Chevy had been running there. If there’s a silver lining, it’s that the points leader lost in the first round, we gained 40-odd points on them, we increased our lead in the all-star call out points. I think maybe it just makes us a little bit hungrier for Seattle because it’s like knowing you’re good at something, you keep making a mistake but instead of beating your head against the wall and making more mistakes, you take that deep breath and you say, okay we got this. I’m hoping Seattle is our ‘we got this’ weekend.”

Alexis DeJoria Returns To The Site Of Her First National Event Victory

Every professional driver remembers where the breakthrough happened.

For Alexis DeJoria, that place is Pacific Raceways.

Before moving into the Funny Car ranks, DeJoria promised herself she would win an NHRA national event in Top Alcohol Funny Car before turning professional. She accomplished that goal at the 2011 Northwest Nationals, a victory that paved the way for her move into Funny Car the following season.

Seattle remains one of the most meaningful stops on her schedule.

“I love racing in Seattle. It’s such a beautiful part of the world and it’s one of the West Coast swing races so it was an easy race to travel to living in Southern California. I won my first NHRA national event at Seattle in 2011 when I was racing Top Alcohol Funny Car so it will always be a special place to me.”

The Bandero Café Chevrolet SS team also has positive recent history at Pacific Raceways, reaching the semifinals one year ago.

Looking back through the record books also revealed an interesting statistic involving her current team owner.

“We had a good showing in Seattle last year in making it into the semifinals and I even beat one of the Bandero Café team’s co-crew chiefs, Jonnie Lindberg, there in 2017. I did see, looking at my history there, that my boss (John Force) took me out three of the nine times I’ve race there so I’ll have to talk with him about that.”

Josh Hart Has One Goal Before The Countdown

While the Funny Car program continues to build momentum, Josh Hart and the Speedmaster Top Fuel team are focused on finishing the regular season on a high note.

Hart opened the season by winning the NHRA Gatornationals in his John Force Racing debut, but the results since then have fallen short of the team’s expectations.

Now, with only three races remaining before the Countdown begins, Hart and crew chiefs David Grubnic and John Collins have established a clear objective.

Finish inside the Top Five.

Hart believes he’s surrounded by the right people to accomplish that goal.

“It’s hard to find people that will do exactly what they say they’re going to do. I’ve learned that lesson harder than I would like to admit. I think that David Grubnic and John Collins (crew chiefs) are stand-up guys, they’re going to do exactly what they say they’re going to do, I’m going to do exactly what I say I’m going to do, and John Force will do what he says he’s going to do. So, I’m not worried about it.”

The team is prepared to do whatever it takes to arrive at the Countdown with momentum.

“We need to be in the top 5 by the end of the regular season and the points reset. It’s a new goal that Grubnic and I came up with and we want to do everything we can to make sure that we wind up there. So, fighting the fight, going round by round. We need to get this thing on track even if it means some testing, whatever it takes to make sure that we’re in the top 5 when we go into the Countdown.”

The Northwest Nationals have long been one of the NHRA schedule’s signature events, and this year’s race carries even more significance.

After celebrating one of the organization’s strongest weekends of the season in Sonoma, Seattle provides another opportunity to gain valuable points, collect race wins, and continue building momentum before the Countdown to the Championship begins.