NHRA POWERade Series Team Reports Photos by Dwight Drum
Forget Milestones, Force Wants a Win
14-Time Funny Car Champ Tries to Complete Comeback
Now that he's driven in his 500th NHRA race, won his 1,000th round, made his 201st final round appearance and celebrated his 59th birthday, all within the last three weeks, John Force acknowledged Wednesday that he may be ready to take the final step in his recovery from career-threatening injuries suffered last fall in a 320 mile-an-hour crash.
"Every race I'm feeling more comfortable in the car," proclaimed the 14-time series champion. "The car's gotten better. I'm better. I think we're ready to win again."
Such an assertion can't be good news for those likely to pull their Funny Cars alongside Force's Castrol GTX® High Mileage™ Ford Mustang at this week's eighth annual O'Reilly Auto Parts Thunder Valley Nationals at Bristol Dragway.
With injuries to his hands, feet and legs that would have been difficult for even a younger man to overcome, the sport's biggest winner was confronted with a situation some believed finally would push him into retirement after 30 years on the NHRA pro tour.
Instead, the 125-time tour winner vowed to be racing again – and not just eventually, but by the 2008 season.
"I'm not going anywhere," he said. "I'm just starting to have fun again. My kids are all out here with me (youngest daughters Brittany, 21, and Courtney, 19, have graduated to the Top Alcohol Dragster division), my ol' hot rod is running good again. I'm having fun. Besides, what would I do? I love this sport. I love what I do and I'm going to do it as long as I can."
True to his word, after four months of intense rehabilitation, the last three with Robert Ortmayer, who customized physical therapy to Force's specific needs as a race car driver, he climbed back in his Mustang for the first time during winter tests in Phoenix.
Then, at the season-opening CARQUEST Winternationals in Pomona, Calif., he qualified fifth and reached the semifinals before losing to teammate Robert Hight.
As a result, he rolls into Bristol Dragway where he won last year's Thunder Valley Nationals, fifth in POWERade points behind daughter Ashley and Hight but ahead of such luminaries as reigning series champion Tony Pedregon, former champion Gary Scelzi, Ron Capps, Del Worsham and Jack Beckman.
John Force/Thunder Valley Nationals
In winning last year's race, Force completely turned around a season that began with a DNQ and a bevy of first round losses. After his second career win at Bristol, he won at Sonoma, Calif., and Brainerd, Minn., and was poised to make a run at his 15th individual championship when he crashed heavily in Dallas, Texas, sending him to the sidelines for the season's last three events.
"Winning all those rounds even impressed me," Force said of his mosts recent accomplishment, "but you try not to think about the records. We just go out every race and do what we do. It's like I told Ashley, you can't let records and the points get in your head cause it'll mess you up.'
"We just focus on winning because that's what Castrol, Ford, the Auto Club and Old Spice pay us to do."
Ashley Force >>>
ASHLEY FOLL0WS DAD INTO HISTORY BOOKS
Champ's Daughter First Woman to Win in FC
"The thing about drag racing," Ashley Force said after an historic victory in the April 27 Summit Southern Nationals at Atlanta, Ga., one that made her the first female winner in NHRA Funny Car history, "is that you can go from hero to zero very quickly."
As if to add emphasis to her observation, after three consecutive trips to the final round, the 25-year-old daughter of drag racing icon John Force was upset in her very first race the following week at Madison, Ill. As a result, she dropped from first to second place in the driver standings behind veteran Tim Wilkerson.
When racing for the NHRA POWERade championship resumes this week at the eighth annual O'Reilly Thunder Valley Nationals at Bristol Dragway, the graduate of Cal State-Fullerton will try to put that stumble behind her and return her Castrol GTX® Ford Mustang to the dominant position it previously occupied.
"For about 40 minutes I was in a pretty crappy mood," she said of losing so early two weeks ago at Gateway International Raceway, "but you always get over it. Seeing dad win his 1,000th round and (teammate Mike) Neff go the finals (in the Old Spice Mustang) completely brought me out of my funk.
"(Besides), no one's going to win all the rounds," said the driver hailed as the new face of high performance. "It's a long season and it's a tough group we race against, so you never want to get ahead of yourself. You can't win unless you get to the final round and you can't get to the final round without winning the first three."
And then there's qualifying.
"Last year, we didn't qualify (for the Thunder Valley Nationals) because we had a problem with the throttle stop (a device that keeps the driver from over-revving the engine on the burnout) on our last run," she explained. "So our first goal is to get our Castrol GTX Mustang in the starting field and then take it one step at a time."
After beating her dad in the first father-daughter final round in pro sports history, Ashley has another historic match-up on her wish list: an all-female final round match-up with veteran Melanie Troxel, who moved over to Funny Car this season after distinguishing herself in the Top Fuel dragster division.
Ashley Force/Thunder Valley Nationals
"If it happens, I think two females in the final would be pretty neat," she said, "but that's not something we're focused on. We're just trying to go out and win rounds to keep ourselves in the Countdown (to the Championship, which determines the 10 drivers eligible to complete in NHRA's playoffs' beginning in September)."
Despite her newfound celebrity, Ashley isn't naive enough to believe she could have won the Auto Club's 2007 Road to the Future Award as the NHRA Rookie-of-the-Year, reached the finals, led the points or won for the first time without the support of a great team anchored by crew chief Dean "Guido" Antonelli, who was a member of the elder Force's crew for 10 championship seasons, and assistant crew chief Ron Douglas, who former crew chief to Cruz Pedregon.
"I'm proud to be a female in the seat," she said, "but I know that without the 10 guys on my team, I never would be here."
"We just knew that if we kept getting to the finals, eventually we'd win one," she said. "I kinda hated that it had to be against dad, but I'm just happy to finally win one."