John Force Racing Targets Big NHRA Championship Weekend At Texas FallNationals

Seven years ago, Jordan Vandergriff rolled into Texas Motorplex as a young Top Fuel driver looking to make his mark in NHRA drag racing. He left the 2019 Texas FallNationals with his first career final-round appearance, but without the trophy he wanted.

Now Vandergriff returns to Dallas with a completely different opportunity in front of him.

The driver of the John Force Racing Cornwell Quality Tools Chevrolet SS Funny Car enters the 2026 Texas NHRA FallNationals second in the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series Funny Car standings. With three races remaining in the Countdown to the Championship, Vandergriff has an opportunity to close the gap on points leader Matt Hagan and put himself in position to compete for a world championship.

Vandergriff isn’t the only John Force Racing driver with something to prove at Texas Motorplex. Jack Beckman needs a big weekend to keep his championship hopes alive, Alexis DeJoria wants redemption after a disappointing finish at St. Louis, and Josh Hart is focused on achieving the Top Fuel goals he established with crew chief David Grubnic before the season started.

Vandergriff’s history at Texas Motorplex goes back to his Top Fuel days.

During the 2019 FallNationals, Vandergriff qualified sixth and put together an impressive run through eliminations. He defeated Clay Millican, Lee Callaway, and Austin Prock to advance to the first final round of his professional NHRA career, waiting for him was Billy Torrence.

Vandergriff got the better of Torrence on the starting line, but his dragster began hazing the tires shortly after the launch. Torrence drove around him before the eighth-mile mark and went on to collect the victory. It was a frustrating ending to an otherwise memorable weekend. Seven years later, Vandergriff returns to the facility with a chance to add another milestone to his career. This time, he’s doing it behind the wheel of a nitro Funny Car with a championship on the line.

Vandergriff’s first full Funny Car season has produced results that have made the rest of the class take notice. Through 17 of the season’s 20 races, Vandergriff sits second in the championship standings. The Cornwell Quality Tools team has collected three victories at South Georgia, Sonoma, and Michigan, along with runner-up finishes at Epping, Brainerd, and St. Louis.

One of the most impressive performances came at Michigan, where Vandergriff qualified No. 16 and went on to win the Countdown opener. He followed that success with another final-round appearance at St. Louis two weeks ago.

Although he came up short against Austin Prock in the final, Vandergriff defeated championship leader Matt Hagan during eliminations and gained valuable points. Now the challenge is turning those performances into enough round wins to chase down Hagan.

“The Cornwell Quality Tools team is right where we should be and where we deserve to be. The point standings show we’re the second-best car in the world, but our mindset is that we’re the best and it’s been that way ever since our first win in Georgia. We know we can win any race so, going to the Dallas and Las Vegas races before the points-and-a-half at Pomona, we just have to control what we can, and that is winning rounds. I realized in St. Louis that, as long as we won rounds, we handled our own destiny. We made the final and stayed where we should. So, the focus is just to win every single round possible.”

Vandergriff understands that the Funny Car championship won’t be decided by one driver simply showing up and making good runs, the competition is too strong. Hagan, Prock, Beckman, and J.R. Todd are all capable of winning races and collecting valuable Countdown points.

That’s why Vandergriff isn’t allowing himself to dwell on the St. Louis runner-up finish.

“Losing to anybody in the final is obviously not what we wanted, but the fact that we were in the final is obviously huge for this Cornwell Quality Tools team. We earned the second most points and beat the points leader going into the final round so we gained some ground. Going into the final round, you just want a chance at it, and we just happened to get beat by what was a better car that day. It’s not lost on me that the other car over there is a good car and they’re right where they should be, too. I think it’s going to come down to the wire with us, Hagan, Prock, Beckman, and Todd, and I’m looking forward to the fight.”

Few drivers in the Funny Car field have a relationship with Texas Motorplex quite like Jack Beckman.

His history at the facility started before he was even an NHRA professional driver. Beckman was sitting in the grandstands as a fan when Texas Motorplex hosted its first NHRA national event in 1986.

He returned in 1998 to compete in Super Comp, raced Top Fuel at the facility in 2005, and made his nitro Funny Car debut there in 2006. Despite all those appearances, a Funny Car victory at Texas Motorplex remained elusive for years, that finally changed in 2020.

Beckman won the FallNationals with his father in attendance to celebrate the victory. Unfortunately, his career soon took an unexpected turn when he found himself without a ride for the next three and a half years.

Beckman returned to competition in 2024 as a substitute for the injured John Force. He qualified seventh at Texas Motorplex that October but woke up Sunday morning suffering from vertigo and was unable to compete. Last season, Beckman reached the second round. Now the 39-time NHRA Funny Car winner returns to Dallas with a championship opportunity that requires him to start collecting victories.

Beckman enters the Texas FallNationals 123 points behind Hagan. That deficit isn’t impossible to overcome, especially with points-and-a-half available at the season finale in Pomona. However, Beckman knows the PEAK Chevrolet team can’t control everything that needs to happen.

His Funny Car has been performing well, but strong runs haven’t always translated into victories.

“It’s going to take a couple of weekends, as we had at Indy, where the PEAK Chevy is doing what it’s doing, and I’m clicking with that. Our car has been absolutely phenomenal the last four races and, in the three races we got beat, those other cars stepped up. You had Matt Hagan, Dan Wilkerson, and Austin Prock put together stellar efforts of reaction times and good ET’s. I don’t have an overdrive. People talk about giving it 110 percent, but that’s not mathematically possible. This isn’t the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl and the quarterback’s got a broken throwing finger and just sucks it up. This is a mental exercise, and I try to do the best I can do, whether it’s qualifying or the final round, and I’m gonna continue to do that. Sometimes the breaks just don’t go your way, so we are going to have to have a couple Indy-like weekends, and we need Hagan to go out early at one or two races, which is very possible. We lost first round at Rockingham to Wilkerson. We had a great car, and I made a good lap, but he made a better lap. We’re painted into a corner right now because it’s not just our excellence that’s going to be needed for the championship. We have to rely on Hagan going out early a couple of times.”

Alexis DeJoria has her own history at Texas Motorplex.

The facility is where she first attempted to qualify a nitro Funny Car in NHRA competition during her abbreviated four-race rookie season in 2011. Fifteen years later, DeJoria returns with a competitive Bandero Café Chevrolet SS Funny Car and a strong desire to get back into the winner’s circle.

DeJoria enters Dallas seventh in the Funny Car standings, 25 points out of sixth and 55 points out of fifth. Her season has included runner-up finishes at Gainesville and Chicago. The Bandero Café team has also qualified in the top half of the field 13 times, including 11 consecutive events. DeJoria has qualified No. 2 at Bristol, Norwalk, Rockingham, and St. Louis, along with No. 3 qualifying efforts at Epping and Seattle.

The performance has been there, what DeJoria wants now is a victory.

“Redemption! The Bandero Café Chevy was the car to beat at St. Louis two weeks ago, and I beat myself in the second round on Sunday. Those losses are brutal, but they make me just want to get right back to the track and into the seat and turn win lights on. We obviously have the ability to win before the season ends and finish higher in championship points than ever before in my career, so that’s all that’s on our minds heading into Dallas.”

Drag racing can test a driver’s patience, especially when the car is capable of winning, but the results don’t reflect that potential, DeJoria knows that feeling. Her St. Louis performance was another example of a weekend where the Bandero Café team had the speed to compete for a trophy but couldn’t finish the job.

Still, DeJoria isn’t allowing the frustration to take away from her confidence in the team.

“I just don’t quit. This Bandero Café team is so strong and so focused, and that gives me the confidence in our race car to charge ahead and do better every time we pull up to the starting line.”

With three races remaining, DeJoria has an opportunity to move higher in the championship standings and potentially finish the season with a victory.

Josh Hart and crew chief David Grubnic established their goals before the 2026 NHRA season began.

At the top of that list was finishing in the top five of the Top Fuel championship standings, and that goal remains very much alive.

Hart enters the Texas FallNationals just 45 points outside the top five and only 70 points behind third place. With three races remaining and additional points available at Pomona, the Speedmaster Top Fuel team has an opportunity to accomplish what it set out to do.

Hart already has a victory this season, winning the Gatornationals at Gainesville. However, the road hasn’t always been smooth for the John Force Racing Top Fuel operation.

Hart and Grubnic have worked through challenges while continuing to develop their combination.

“At the beginning of this year, Dave Grubnic and I set our objectives to make sure that we finished in the top five. We knew there were going to be some hurdles and that we were going to learn from each other. I said in recent social media posts that the tough times are when you find out what everybody’s really made of. Some people took that post out of context. It’s cool when champagne is falling from the heavens. But when you’re down, you get to see who’s going to man up and take the bull by the horns to try to figure out how to turn this thing around. Not one single person on this team has ever said, ‘You know, I’m done. I’m going to go to another team.’ It’s always been ‘We know what we need to do and we’re working on it, and that’s all you can ask from these guys. So how could I complain?”

Hart’s comments reflect his confidence in the people working on the Speedmaster dragster. Even when results haven’t met expectations, the team has continued working toward its goals. A strong showing at Texas Motorplex could move Hart significantly closer to a top-five championship finish.

The Texas NHRA FallNationals arrives at a critical point in the 2026 season for John Force Racing.

Vandergriff is chasing his first Funny Car world championship and wants to improve on the runner-up finish he earned at Texas Motorplex seven years ago in Top Fuel. Beckman needs a victory to keep his championship hopes alive. DeJoria is searching for redemption and wants to convert her strong qualifying performances into a long-awaited win. Hart is working toward the top-five Top Fuel finish he and Grubnic identified as their primary goal before the season began.

All four drivers have reasons to believe they can leave Dallas with strong results.