NHRA Funny Car racer Alexis De Joria has qualified second at each of the past three races.

So when she found out Friday night at zMAX Dragway that she was her class’ provisional No. 1 qualifier for the Circle K Four-Wide Nationals, she jumped up and down  and covered her mouth in excitement.

“It’s definitely fun when you're winning, when you're going rounds, when you're qualifying really well and you're getting those little, itty-bitty points,” she said as her 199th race couldn’t have gotten off to a better start.

In her Bandero Toyota Supra, De Joria clocked the quickest elapsed time at 3.876 seconds on the    

Concord, N.C., 1,000-foot course with a top speed of 333.08 mph to kick off this second straight four-lane event on the Camping World Drag Racing Series tour.

Josh Hart (Top Fuel), Cristian Cuadra (Pro Stock), and Gaige Herrera (Pro Stock Motorcycle) also are tentative leaders with two qualifying sessions Saturday to go before fields are set for Sunday’s eliminations.

She fared well in the previous race, at Las Vegas, reaching Round 2 and coming away with the No. 3 ranking in the standings. But that performance kind of haunts her, she said: “I hope we do better than Vegas. That definitely was our race to lose. But this is a new race and a new four-wide.

“I have yet to win a four-wide,” she said, clearly resolute to remedy that this weekend.

De Joria said she and DC Motorsports team owner Del Worsham “have a lot of conversations prior to our runs. He'll come back and tell me how everybody's doing, how the lane's going. And right when we were sitting in the water box, ready to go, there was an oil down or something in Lane 2. So we had a little bit of time. And so he comes back to me [and] he goes, ‘You feel good? You look good. Everything's good?’

“I go, ‘Yeah, yeah, OK, good,” she said “And he goes, ‘All right, well, the best is [3.]87 [seconds in elapsed time] out there, so just do your best. Stay shallow [in staging]. It's qualifying. I was like, ‘Yeah, I know.’ He goes, ‘We're going to do our best out there. I said, ‘You got it in the bank, Del?’

He said yes – but reminded her that “it's just a matter of us getting down there.”

She told him, “I got you.”

And proudly she said, “I got it down there.”

She did. And if it holds through two more sessions Saturday, she will have the seventh top starting spot of her career.

De Joria guessed that her achievement will remain unsurpassed, because “tomorrow doesn’t look like it’s going to be much cooler. God willing, we will stay in the No. 1 position and go some rounds on Sunday and hopefully make it to the winners circle.”

Then she caught herself and said, “Can’t think that far ahead.”

Leading the pack Friday shouldn’t have come as such a surprise, for before she arrived at Charlotte Motor Speedway, De Joria said, “With the way everything has been coming together so far this year, I like our chances this weekend. We made great, consistent runs and gained some serious points, even though we didn’t take home the win in Vegas. To say I’m looking forward to this next race would be an understatement. We came close to putting our Bandero Supra in the winners circle the last time we were in Charlotte.”

She was runner-up in two-wide fashion here last September. “We’ve been working towards our current success,” De Joria said. Then she remarked, without any real detail, “We’ve been through hell and back.

“So we’re really excited about how we’re running. This is our best start to the season. Our car is so consistent. The last few races it’s been getting down the track when a lot of cars haven’t been getting down the track – and getting down there quickly,” De Joria said.

“Now,” she added, “It’s up to me. I’ve got to do my part.”

So far, so good.