Drag Illustrated Issue 118, February 2017 | Page 44

make the cockpit more padded and safer. You can do so much to pad your head, but your brain is still liquid inside your skull; there’s nothing you can do about that. We did what we can to make things as safe as possible. We went through the trailers and made sure all of the parts and pieces are just right so we don’t have any more mishaps like we had in Vegas. Even with all of those improvements to the safety features of the racecar, a nitro Funny Car is such a violent racecar by nature. Have your crew chiefs adopted a less aggressive tuning style to avoid stirring up more concussion-like symptoms? You can’t really baby these things. You’ve gotta keep trying to excel. Funny Car is a very competitive class right now. If you’re not going low 3.8s, most likely you’re not going to win a round. You really have to be within the top five in qualifying to be able to go rounds right now. So we’re doing a lot of testing. We’re scheduled to test here on Monday, and we tested in Phoenix. We’re just gonna try to keep getting quicker and quicker. We’re all running those laid-back headers now, and the guys have done some things with the weight to keep the front end down, which is a lot better for driving – you’ve gotta be able to steer these cars. We’re just going to keep chipping away at it. Did your husband, [West Coast Choppers founder] Jesse James, or your father, [Patrón Spirits and Paul Mitchell co-founder] John Paul DeJoria, ever suggest you reconsider getting back in the car after those accidents, even though they’ve both been very supportive of your racing career? Oh, of course. My whole family wishes I would retire today. But no, they’re good. Obvi- ously it’s hard when the shoe is on the other foot and you’re standing on the starting line watching your loved one go down the racetrack, and unfor- tunately they might get hurt. It’s something that everyone has had to pret- ty much sign on for when they supported me being out here. My dad is com- ing out today and I have my husband out here too, so all hands on deck. Having gone through those accidents and the long recovery process, did you feel any apprehension when you got back in the car for the first time earlier this year? I wouldn’t say apprehension at all. I would say anticipation after wait- ing that long. A normal offseason is just a couple months, but mine was a bit longer than that. I was excited to get back in the car. It was almost like my first time going down the track, but everything came back, no is- sues whatsoever. It’s a funny thing when you’ve been off for three months, when you first go back out there it’s like the first day of school. You’re like, ‘Do I remember how to do this? Oh yeah, OK, that’s how it goes.’ DI DI DI DI DI DI DI DI DI DI 44 | D r a g I l l u s t r a t e d | Dra