Alexis DeJoria and the Patrón XO Cafe Incendio team competed in the NHRA Auto Club Finals, the final race of the 2015 NHRA Mello Yello Series this past weekend.
I'd like to start off by congratulating my teammate Del Worsham and the DHL Toyota Camry team. Del just won the 2015 NHRA Funny Car championship. I'm so incredibly proud of that team -- they've worked so hard this year, and they deserve that championship.
Del has been my mentor from Day 1. He taught me how to drive a nitro Funny Car, and he's been my best buddy out here. When times get tough, I always kind of lean on him as a confidante. As a fellow driver, I just have so much respect for him and his team. Nicky [Boninfante] , JonO [Jon Oberhofer] and the entire DHL team just did an incredible job so huge congrats to them.
As for us, we didn't have the best day Sunday -- getting beat in the second round -- but we did do well earlier this weekend in qualifying. We ran a 3.987-second pass on Friday evening that got us safely into the show on the first night. We've run a lot of three-second runs this season. That's important because that's where our class is at right now. If you're not running in the three-second zone consistently, you're not a contender.
We ended up finishing the season ranked eighth among the Funny Car class. That's one position lower than we finished last year, but last year we won three races. Even though we didn't win any races this year, we did improve on our Countdown performance. We won more rounds this year during the six-race Countdown than we did last year, so there is something to be said for that.
My guys did such a good job not only this weekend but throughout this entire season. You're not always going to have the best days, but you have to be able to get through them. When you win, it's all worth it. All the hard work does eventually pay off. It's a roller-coaster ride, but when you do win, the wins are that much sweeter because you know how hard it is to get that point. The DHL team can attest to that. They've gone through it all over there.
I'm just going to take these next two months of the offseason to recuperate and get in the gym -- although not too soon. I want at least a couple of days off to have some fun and relax in my sweats. I'm sure I'm going to spend my first 24 hours at home in bed watching movies.
Tonight we have the banquet and that's always exciting. Del is going to be up on stage giving his speech, and I'm going to be up on stage all dressed up to the nines in my gown. This is always a fun time of year, but I'm already looking forward to the next season. I'm sure it's going to be a very, very competitive season. With all of the record-breaking numbers we've seen this year, you just know next year is going to be very intense. I cannot wait. I love my guys. I'm going to miss them over the next few months, but we'll be right back at it at the end of January for preseason testing, and then we start our season the week after that.
That's the end of my 2015 espnW NHRA Countdown to the Championship blog. Thank you all for following along. Hopefully I'll be checking back in with you guys next year!
