Paul Lee Victorious at the NHRA Arizona Nationals in Nitro Funny Car

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Paul Lee Victorious at the NHRA Arizona Nationals in Nitro Funny Car

 

Entrepreneur and heart attack survivor Paul Lee won the 2025 NHRA Arizona Nationals in his McLeod Racing/FTI Performance Dodge Charger Nitro Funny Car. This win is Lee's first in the category.

To honor Paul's win, both McLeod Racing and FTI Performance are holding a special 11.6% discount to honor Paul's competition number 116.

With impressive runs and a little bit of race day luck, Lee and his team, led by Jonnie Lindberg and John Medlen, forged through four rounds of tough competition to hoist the Wally at the end of the day. Leaving the Arizona Nationals in the No. 1 position in NHRA Funny Car points, Lee will head straight into the Winternationals this weekend.

With the win in Arizona, Lee became the 96th different Funny Car winner in NHRA history. Sunday's elimination rounds stacked up to be a tough feat for the McLeod team. Lee took down Gainesville winner Chad Green, Blake Alexander, Bob Tasca III and reigning Funny Car World Champion Austin Prock in the final round. With this win, it has solidified all the hard work that Paul has overcome in this class.

"I've been working towards this since I was 13 years old," said Lee. "Every day, all I've ever thought about is, not just driving a Nitro Funny Car, but winning. I'm not happy just being out here, but winning this Wally. All those 50 years of hard work, you know what? It's worth it. And it is a special day. We lost (Funny Car driver) Eric Medlen on this day (March 23, 2007). And we have a team prayer every Sunday. John Medlen (Eric's father) leads us in the Sunday prayer, and today, he asked for Eric to watch out for us. And you know something, our whole pit was calm all day. We just had a feeling that Eric was watching over us. And it's a funny feeling. We were calm all day. Nobody was excited. Everybody did their job."

With the wave of excitement and accomplishment in the air, the McLeod Racing team turned their focus to the Winternationals in Pomona, California. 

"After taking a few days to celebrate, it's back to business. Our team is working like a Swiss clock currently, and we want to take that momentum into Pomona. Our focus is now on repeating each run and getting more data with this new car. Jonnie is learning fast about what this new car likes. Let's go," said Lee.

For more information, visit McLeodRacing.com and FTIPerformance.com.

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