Why Alexis DeJoria Shunned the Board Room for a 330-MPH Career in Drag Racing

Of all the professional drag racers on the National Hot Rod Association’s roster, perhaps the most unlikely is Alexis DeJoria, who has driven over 330 mph in her nitro-burning, 12,000-horsepower Funny Car that goes from a standing start to the end of the 1000-foot drag strip in less than four seconds.

She is the daughter of John Paul DeJoria, who founded the Paul Mitchell line of hair care products, and the Patron Spirits Company, which was sold to Bacardi in 2018 for $5.1 billion. He has interests in everything from a bison farm to the House of Blues nightclubs.

He is also a car guy, who has owned multiple exotics, including a Vector W8 Twin-Turbo. He also is one of the investors in the Circuit of the Americas racetrack in Austin, Texas.

Some of that must have rubbed off on Alexis, whose name turns up annually as one of the richest female athletes in the world. The website Celebritynetworth.com places her as 2024’s fourth richest female athlete with a net worth of $100 million. (The top three are all tennis players, topped by Serena Williams, at $300 million.)

DeJoria’s Funny Car, not surprisingly, is sponsored by Bandero, a premium tequila that goes for $50 a bottle. Alexis and her father are partners in the business.

You might think that instead of racing, Alexis DeJoria would more likely to be found sitting at her desk, running a company. “You know, I did do that for four years, right out of high school,” she told Hagerty. “I worked for the family business, in different departments to learn about the company. But I had this itch, and when it came down to it, it was my passion and my life. I was always taught to follow your passion, and if you could make your passion your profession, you’re winning.”

That itch started when she was growing up in Southern California. “I just kind of gravitated towards the hot rod owners at school. I raced around town some, and wanted to do it for real. So I went to Frank Hawley’s drag racing school to learn the ropes, and I got licensed to race.

“I found an old Super Gas Corvette that was for sale, and I raced it for a while, but it was kind of on its last legs. So I sold it and found a two-year-old Super Comp dragster, and within two months I made two final rounds and won the Sportsman Nationals race, which is really hard to do in that class. There’s hundreds of cars and a ton of rounds.”

DeJoria patiently climbed the ladder, from Super Gas to Super Comp to alcohol-burning Funny Cars, before making the final move to nitro-burning Funny Cars. She could have easily bought her way into the top class much more quickly, but she didn’t. She even moved to Gainesville, Florida, where Hawley’s racing school is based, to have easier access to more training.

“I just wanted to have that success in each class before I moved to the next one. But from day one, my goal was to run Nitro Funny Cars. Ever since I saw them when I was 16, at the Pomona drag strip, I just absolutely fell in love with that class. And this is what I want to do.”

DeJoria made her debut in a Nitro Funny Car in 2011, running for Kalitta Motorsports. In 2014, she became the first female racer to make a pass in less than four seconds, with a 3.997 elapsed time at the NHRA Winternationals at Pomona, the track she visited so often as a teenager. At the next race, she got her first win at Phoenix, followed up shortly by her second win, at Las Vegas. Later that year she won the most prestigious race on the circuit, the U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis.

She took a break in 2017 to deal with some personal matters. At the time she was married to West Coast Choppers founder and TV star Jesse James, who had been married to actress Sandra Bullock until 2010. James and DeJoria divorced in 2020, after seven years of marriage.

She made her racing comeback that same year, this time driving for a new team headed by former racer Del Worsham. With that team, she won once, at Bristol in 2021, and made it to the final round seven times. In all, it was disappointing, and the 2024 season was a rough one—it seemed everything that could go wrong, did. DeJoria finished 11th in the points.

So last January, DeJoria, 47, made a surprise announcement: For 2025, she’ll race for the JCM race team, headed by Joe Maynard. At the announcement, it sounded as though she’d be teammates with Top Fuel former champ Tony Schumacher, but that deal didn’t come together, and it was just announced that Schumacher will race for Rick Ware’s team.

Meanwhile, DeJoria will have a teammate for some races this year, starting with the season-opening NHRA Gatornationals this weekend: 2023 FIA European Drag Racing Top Fuel champion Ida Zetterström, 30, from Sweden, is hoping to race her way into a full-time job if enough sponsorship can be found. She raced eight times last season, and has enough sponsorship to run at least eight races this year. “She’s awesome,” DeJoria said. “She’s got a great attitude, and she’s a bad-ass, rides a motorcycle like I do. I think it’s really cool to have two strong females on the same team.”

Moving to the new team has been a ”smooth transition,” DeJoria said. “We put the deal together just two months ago,” and to be able to get the program done quickly enough to make the first race of the season “is an absolute miracle.”

DeJoria has long been associated with Toyota, but the company announced last year that 2025 will be its last in the NHRA. To DeJoria, it made sense to go ahead and transition to a different manufacturer, “So we’ll be running a Dodge Charger body,” DeJoria said, instead of a Toyota.

She has two chassis to choose from; one was her backup car last year, and the other one is new. Both were built by John Force Racing. “I wanted to be consistent, so it was important to have two of the same chassis. So we have two JFR chassis, and two Dodge Charger bodies.”

So what would make 2025 a successful year? “Honestly, getting back into the top 10. Finishing well, going rounds—we’d like to win a race, but this last year and a half has been really hard on all of us. Man, it was just bad luck after bad luck. I’ve won races before, but we’ve just been in a bit of a slump. But in drag racing, it can turn around just like that. It happens to the best of ‘em. That’s what makes the sport so special. It can humble any of us.”

Hopefully for DeJoria, the turnaround begins this weekend with the 55th NHRA Gatornationals at Gainesville Raceway. There’s two qualifying sessions for the two Nitro classes on Friday and two more on Saturday, with eliminations beginning at 11 a.m. ET on Sunday. Coverage airs at 7 p.m. ET on Fox Sports 1.