When Toyota Racing Development president David Wilson heard DeJoria wanted to come back, he thought it was “almost serendipitous.” DeJoria rejoining the Toyota fold is a chance to finish their story.

“She’s a racer’s racer,” Wilson tells RACER. “I don’t need to talk about her being female – she’s a racer’s racer, and she is a badass. And I love that she’s part of our family. I love that she’s proud to be part of our family and makes no bones about it.”

Adds Doleshal, “It’s good to have the diversity of her being back, really rounding us out again a little bit. Alexis, she’s a tough hot rod gal. She lives that. Nitro, she loves it. Riding motorcycles. But she’s also a mom, and the connection she can make with a lot of people is huge, and we love having that story to tell.”

DeJoria and Worsham go way back. Worsham is a former Funny Car and Top Fuel champion and a big believer in DeJoria. DeJoria was licensed in his car, considers him a mentor, and she always admired Worsham and John Force as the “baddest on the block.”

“She’s resilient,” Worsham tells RACER. “She’s tough; we don’t talk about her in terms of male or female, she’s a tough racer. And she’s a tough person in general. She has a Funny Car driver’s mentality – she’s a girl, but she has a ton of grit. When you drive Funny Cars, you have to be tough – I have the scars on my hands to prove it – and she’s that kind of person.”

Sonoma, where DeJoria was the second-fastest qualifier, showed how far the team has come in a short amount of time. DeJoria’s qualified top two in five of the season’s opening nine races, and made the semifinals at Sonoma, which was her fourth appearance in the last six races. (She’s made the semifinals or beyond seven times in the previous 13 events). She lost to Matt Hagan, the same driver DeJoria fell to in the finals the week prior in Denver.

“We’ve been working towards this,” DeJoria says. “We knew this was going to happen. We knew we were going to do well, it was just a matter of time.”

New team growing pains aside, it’s DeJoria who’s putting in the work behind the wheel. She takes it hard when she makes mistakes. It means so much to DeJoria for her team to have success, and she wants them to be proud of their work.

“I feel like I’m letting them down,” says DeJoria. “On the flip side, they feel like they’re letting me down if the car doesn’t make it or run good or blows up. I’m like, ‘No man, this is what we do.’ I said, ‘Have my back, and I got your back.’”

DeJoria has qualified within the top two in five of the opening nine rounds of the 2021 NHRA season.

Reaction time is an area DeJoria has been focusing on to be more consistent. She admits she’s been trying to red light to find where the line is. Other than that, after two years away, DeJoria hasn’t had much to re-acclimatize to, and didn’t forget the little things.

“It was a nice surprise,” DeJoria says. “The speed, that was something you forget after not being in the car for a while. That got my attention again and got me excited. After going over 300 miles an hour on a consistent basis, you really lose your sense of speed. It feels fast, but not as fast anymore.

“You take two years off and then get back in that car, it’s like, ‘Woah, this is fast. This is why I do this.’ It was kind of a cool experience to be able to do that and be able to appreciate what I get to do all over again.”

DeJoria, Worsham, and all involved are now about wins. Confidently so.

“We are (going to win),” Worsham says.

“We’re just getting better and better,” DeJoria says. “The more information we get, the tighter we get, the better we do. We’re going to be unstoppable.”

“The better the car does, the more confidence I have in my abilities to do well too,” DeJoria continues. “But it is humbling. They give you a great car, and sometimes, we’re human, and we’ll make mistakes and maybe not get the best reaction time, which I’ll beat the hell out of myself for. Then other times, I’ll do really well, and the car will drop cylinders and won’t make it to the finish line.

“It’s definitely a team effort. Right now, we’re on a roll, and it’s just going to get better. We’re going to win very soon.”

DeJoria is a five-time Funny Car winner, and each run she makes is rebuilding her confidence and maybe even herself.

“I’m back where I belong,” DeJoria says of coming back as she did. “I’m back in my happy place.”