Expand<\/a><\/p>\nSisters Jasmine Salinas and Jianna Evaristo were living a childhood dream over the weekend, with both racing at the Denso NHRA Sonoma Nationals.<\/p>\n
Salinas has been cooking up something back at the garage, and she was ready to take the wraps off over the weekend during a homecoming to Sonoma Raceway, where she reached the Top Fuel finals for the first time this season.<\/p>\n
The San Jose native is running a mixed NHRA\/IHRA Top Fuel schedule with her Valley Services\/Scrappers Racing dragster, based out of Brownsburg, Ind. Her Western Swing continues July 24-26 with the NHRA Northwest Nationals at Pacific Raceways, just north of Seattle.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis weekend we have all of our sponsors, friends and family out,\u201d Salinas said, \u201cso I think just having that extra little edge of having people in the grandstands cheering you on, people coming up to you to support you, it really makes you proud. Being able to race in Sonoma and being from the Bay Area, it\u2019s so much of an honor to be able to represent the local area.\u201d<\/p>\n
Salinas lost a narrow battle with defending champion Doug Kalitta in the Top Fuel finals. Salinas got the jump off the line, but a cylinder blew on her Valley Services\/Scrappers Racing dragster near the end as she ran a 3.815 ET at 319.14 mph. Kalitta caught her with a 3.731-second run at 339.96 mph.<\/p>\n
Salinas added to her drag strip cred with Sunday\u2019s quarterfinal upset win over Top Fuel points lead Shawn Langdon at Sonoma. She was quick on the gas with a 0.062 reaction time to beat Langdon side-by-side down the lane at 309.91 mph. She then got a holeshot win over Leah Pruett in the semifinals, with a 0.068 reaction time to leave the line first and narrowly beat Pruett to the finish. Pruett got down the track in 3.751 seconds at 331.94 mph, but her 0.091 RT gave the edge to Salinas with a 3.772-second run at 334.98 mph.<\/p>\n
\u201cPart-time team, full-time energy,\u201d assistant crew chief and general manager Adem Cave said after Salinas beat No. 8 qualifier Josh Hart in Sunday\u2019s first-round matchup, with a 3.756 run at 319.90 mph.<\/p>\n
The Scrappers Team is building for the future after making the difficult decision in 2025 to park the car midway through the season while sitting fifth in the standings.<\/p>\n
Salinas ran at Gainesville, Charlotte and Bristol earlier this season, and sits 16th in the standings, well out of the championship race. But a strong effort during the Western Swing could be more valuable than points if she can attract sponsors to back a full-time run next season.<\/p>\n
Veterans and legends alike were singing the praises of Salinas all weekend, describing her as part of the future success of the sport.<\/p>\n
\u201cTeams show us some respect, and that means a lot for a small team like this,\u201d Salinas said.<\/p>\n
The 34-year-old Salinas made her NHRA Top Fuel debut at the 2024 Pomona Winternationals when she subbed for her father, Mike Salinas, who was on medical leave. Salinas tied for second in the Lucas Oil Top Alcohol Dragster national championships in 2022, and the next year earned her Top Fuel license.<\/p>\n
Mike Salinas, a nine-time Top Fuel winner, has been working to get back into the driver\u2019s seat after heart surgery, and planned to race a handful of events this season.<\/p>\n
Mike Salinas was at Sonoma to watch his daughters racing. Riding her JHG\/Scrappers\/Denso\/MSR Buell, Jianna Evaristo, currently sixth in the Pro Stock Motorcycle standings, beat Denso teammate Matt Smith in a first-round matchup in the GETTRX NHRA All-Star Callout, but lost in the semifinals Saturday to RevZilla\/Mission\/Vance & Hines Suzuki rider Richard Gadson.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one comes to the track to lose,\u201d Evaristo said. \u201cBut you never want to race against a teammate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Evaristo has a \u201csabbatical\u201d now as the Pro Stock Motorcycle category is on hiatus until Sept. 2-7 at the NHRA U.S. Nationals at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first half of the season is all testing, and then once we hit Indy, we\u2019re pretty much fighting for the championship,\u201d Evaristo said. \u201cEverything we\u2019ve been working on, practicing, testing, and once we go to Indy, it\u2019s game time. There\u2019s no margin for error.\u201d<\/p>\n
Evaristo, who reached the semifinals in Maryland on May 31, has been racing full-time since 2023, after racing Pro Stock Motorcycles part-time since 2019.<\/p>\n
Jasmine and Jianna grew up around racing with their father. Mike Salinas stressed the importance of an education to his four daughters, but he couldn\u2019t deter the sisters from following in his path. Jasmine, the oldest, got her start at age 14 in the NHRA Junior Drag Racing Series, but younger sister Jianna broke into the pro ranks first.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s my younger sister, but she\u2019s been racing longer,\u201d Jasmine joked. \u201cShe and my dad offer a lot of good advice. We\u2019re a family, and we always stay close.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jasmine said the racing schedule didn\u2019t allow for a reunion at Sonoma with all the family who showed up for the race, but that they would take time for a get-together with their extended family after Seattle.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing the part-time team, we\u2019ve done some other racing outside of NHRA, but that\u2019s helped kind of get our car tuned up,\u201d Jasmine Salinas said. \u201cThe reality is, we haven\u2019t really raced a lot with having four qualifiers, so that\u2019s a lot of data we\u2019ve left behind, but having the group of guys that we do have, and the years of experience, it shows in the car\u2019s performance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crew chief Todd Okuhara and Cave bring decades of experience with championship Top Fuel and Funny Car teams, and \u201cthose two together have really been guiding me,\u201d Salinas said.<\/p>\n
The sisters, of Mexican and Indonesian descent, have been breaking down barriers as women of color in sports and business. Jasmine was the first woman of color to compete in NHRA\u2019s Top Fuel class. Evaristo and Denso teammate Angie Smith are the only two full-time Pro Stock Motorcycle riders currently riding.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe understand the importance of representation,\u201d Evaristo said. \u201cGrowing up, there were always women out here, but there weren\u2019t too many women who looked like us. That\u2019s a really big thing that we always try to promote. Especially when we come home to Sonoma, which is our home track, we get a lot of parents who say \u2018My daughter follows you because she looks like you, and she admires you.\u2019 That\u2019s important for young girls to be able to see.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since she made her Top Fuel debut, Jasmine Salinas has also been managing her Scrapper Top Fuel race team\u2019s day-to-day business operations, while balancing her duties as a driver. The schedule keeps her busy, but also has brought her attention as an up-and-coming driver and a businesswoman in a challenging field. She was a featured panelist at the third annual Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment Business of Women\u2019s Sports Summit in 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been learning the social media stuff, marketing, accounting, everything,\u201d Salinas said. \u201cThere aren\u2019t a lot of drivers who have the opportunity to get to learn all the ins and outs of the business side, and they don\u2019t have to worry about how to keep the lights one which could be a great thing. But I\u2019m very fortunate to carry this extra stress.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Jose’s Jasmine Salinas competed during the\u00a0Denso NHRA Sonoma Nationals in Sonoma this past weekend. (Courtesy of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406572,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[81034,163002,180,88,90,89,152149,127],"class_list":["post-406571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-marin-sports","tag-motor-sports","tag-newsletter","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-sonoma-raceway","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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