Building toward what has long been anticipated as her next move into the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series ranks, second-generation drag racer Jasmine Salinas has spent the early months of the season racking up laps in her father Mike’s championship-contending Scrappers Racing Top Fuel Dragster.

Jasmine, 31, who debuted in Top Alcohol Dragster in the spring of 2019 and earned her first national event win at Gainesville a season ago, made her first runs in a Top Fuel car following the NHRA Arizona Nationals at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park in late March, successfully completing her planned 330-foot shutoff runs.

“My initial reaction was, ‘I know I didn’t even make a full pull and the power of these cars is absolutely incredible.’ ” she told NHRA.com. “And at that moment, right there is where I realized I want to spend this entire year taking my time because it gave me even more respect for these cars and the power that they have. I want to respect it so much and take my time with it because the horsepower and how fast it was. I’ve 100-percent fallen in love with it, and I’m ruined, and I’ll be even more ruined when I make my first full pass.”

She then had a second outing at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in mid-April, and wasted no time at all getting her first full run out of the way, carding a very impressive 3.793 at just 279.21 mph. Subsequent runs that day ended in tire-smoke both early and late in the run that challenged her driving skills (and frightened her mother), but solidified the reasons why transitioning into a Top Fuel car is a process, not a race.

While it is speculated that Jasmine could make her Top Fuel debut in 2024 — a point she alludes to in her videos — the team has not publicly set any plan in place.