At the start of 2018, 2017 rookie phenom Jonnie Lindberg was involved in a scary crash with John Force at the NHRA Arizona Nationals at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park.

Lindberg was an innocent bystander in the crash and, while he was able to climb out under his own power, his car was destroyed. Yet it only took the team a couple of races to get back up to speed.

“We built that new car, and in Gainesville, we didn’t qualify because we had some issues with the car, you know. We didn’t have time to test it,” said Lindberg. “But after that, there was nothing wrong with the car really.

“I think it’s the track prep really… We’ve just been struggling finding the right tuneup.”

While Lindberg raced to three final round appearances in 2017, the Swedish racing driver has been unable to duplicate that success in 2018, and thus was unable to even make it to the Countdown.

While this means Lindberg is in no position to contend for the championship, his intention remains to get a win and upset the Countdown contenders in the final few rounds. But before he can turn on the win light at the end of the strip, the driver of the Head Inc. Toyota knows he needs to win the race at the start of the strip first.

“[In Dallas] I lost on a holeshot first round, and that’s really hard. I’ve been working really hard and trying to improve my reaction times. You never want to lose on a holeshot because it feels like, I’m driving for Head and I don’t want to let him down, and the whole team. It’s just like you let them down because you did a bad job driving.

“I have a practice tree at home, and I go work out and just try to be healthy, eat good, drink a lot of water and just try to do my best.”

Despite his mistakes and the team’s struggles, Lindberg is still enjoying his time out on the racetrack against some of the biggest stars in the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series.

“We’ve been behind the 8-ball a little bit this year. Of course not the year we’ve been hoping for but it’s always fun to be out here and compete with the big boys, so I’m happy.”

Better reaction times and a better understanding of the track prep will definitely help Lindberg compete even closer with the big boys, as long as he doesn’t end up in their parachutes again.