Jeff Arend will be competing at the 2017 season-opening Winternationals Feb. 9-12 at Pomona, Calif.

The NHRA veteran will be driving a nitro Funny Car owned by Steve Plueger.

“I’m really looking forward to this opportunity,” Arend said. “All the people on the team are really cool. This is a good thing and its right around the corner from my home. I will have lots of fans and friends there and I’m looking forward to the challenge of not only driving the car, but also working on it as well.”

Arend has driven for Plueger before, most recently in 2015 for a few races, including the Winternationals.

Arend’s last NHRA race was the 2016 season-ending Auto Club Finals in November at Pomona.

Arend, serving as a substitute driver for Alexis DeJoria at Kalitta Motorsports, clocked a personal-best 3.930-second time at 317.19 mph during the event. Arend upset Matt Hagan in the first round before losing in round two to Courtney Force. Arend clocked a 3.979-second elapsed time against Force with a career-best 323.97 mph.

DeJoria, who pilots the Tequila Patrón Toyota Camry Funny Car for Kalitta Motorsports, was sidelined because of a concussion.

The last time Plueger’s Funny Car was at an NHRA national event was at the 2016 fall race in Las Vegas. Jon Capps was driving the Funny Car and in the final-qualifying session Oct. 29, he experienced a wild ride. The Funny Car had a giant wheelstand and hit the wall.

“They had a lot of work to do after the accident last year and Steve actually fixed the front half of the car himself and you couldn’t ask for a better guy to do it,” said Arend of Plueger, a renowned chassis builder. “They got it all fixed up.”

With Arend behind the wheel, Plueger’s team went to the Nitro Spring Training last week at Wild Horse Motorsports Park in Chandler, Ariz.

“We wanted to get some stuff sorted out at the test session,” Arend said. “While we didn’t run any 3s, or anything I would say it was a good test session because we learned a lot of things we need to work on or fix and get the car in better shape, so it was definitely worth going there.”

Arend said he made four runs total at Wild Horse Motorsports Park.

“We didn’t make any full passes,” Arend said. “We had one that went to about 400 or 500 feet that had numbers to run high 3.90s, low 4.0s, which would be a career best for them, but we still need to work on a couple of things before we’re ready to make a full run.”

Arend, who has four national event wins in nitro Funny Car, has realistic goals for this weekend.

“It’s the beginning of the year and everybody is tied for first place and if we can get the motor sorted out a little bit better I would say we have a really good chance of qualifying and if we are able to go there and qualify and make some good runs and not hurt any parts that would be a success for us,” Arend said.