NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

It’s a long trip from the Netherlands to the United States, but it’s symbolic of the trek that Top Fuel racer Lex Joon and wife Gerda have traveled to participate on the Mello Yello Drag Racing Series tour and the 50th Amalie Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals.

After accomplishing all that he felt there was to accomplish in the European FIA drag racing scene, including a Top Fuel championship, events wins, records, and more, Joon and his wife Gerda began chasing what they called their “American Dream,” competing at the final two events of 2009 and returning in 2010 to compete at the Auto Club NHRA Finals, but failed to qualify at all three races.

The Joons returned to Europe and continued racing, but dreamed of returning the U.S. full time to challenge the world’s best drag racers.

“We’d won everything there was to win, and I always like a challenge,” he said. “We loved racing in America, the people, the country, everything about it. This is where drag racing started, this is the best racers are, and that’s who we want to challenge ourselves against.”

As anyone who’s followed the news the last couple of years well knows, immigration can be a tricky proposal, so the Joons hired a lawyer to help with the Visa and permitting process and actually found that his immense list of racing accomplishments.

“We put together a book that was this thick,” he said, hold his fingers four inches apart. “The goal was first to get a green card and then citizenship and having all of those accomplishments really helped.”

Once they got the green light in early 2013, they sold their auto repair business and everything else they owned not related to the race car. They put their race car into a shipping container in Rotterdam for the four-week overseas journey, then flew to Brownsburg, Ind., the central hub of nitro racing, found an apartment and a storage unit for the car, which arrived in New Your four weeks later and was put on a train to Indiana.

“Once everything was here, we had to start building up again,” said Joon. “I’m not a multimillionaire so I had to find a job just like everyone else to pay the bills and start to buy things like a trailer and all of the parts. We put every penny we made into the race car, and it took us nearly five years to be ready to race again. I had to update my parts, especially my wings and the chassis – which costs us about $50,000 -- and, of course, my NHRA license had expired, so I had to make some runs at the Indy track to get that back.”

By late summer of last year, the Joons were race ready. With a small sponsorship deal with JLM Lubricants, they made their NHRA re-debut at the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals. A blown engine on their first qualifying run put them behind and they failed to make the field. They tried again in both St. Louis and Charlotte and kept finding themselves just outside the field as they battled engine woes. In St. Louis, they finally traced the problem to a set of older piston rings, but had problems containing their newly refound horsepower and smoked the tires on all four qualifying runs in Charlotte.

Now that we have our power back, we’re ready for this season,” said Joon. “I have Keith Stewart working with me to tune the car, and he’s very smart. I had always watched him and thought that if he ever got a chance to show his ability, he could really do something.

“Our first two qualifying runs Friday will be like testing for us, then we’ll try to make the field Saturday. I think that with the parts we have we can run 3.70s and qualify. I know we’ll get it done, and if we can qualify at every race we go to, we’ll be able to keep going, maybe running 12 races this year. We think there’s a good window of opportunity now because some of the big teams are struggling and we think we can come in and run good.

“It’s just so awesome to have the car certified and ready to run, with good parts, and a good team to continue our American dream.”