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Saturday, February 24
Dominating Force still going strong
By Jerry Bonkowski
ESPN.com
NHRA Funny Car driver John Force is like a person who has a bad commute to work every day. Rather than taking the same route over and over, Force varies his routine to keep things fresh. It also keeps himself from getting bored.
That's why, even after winning a record 10 of the last 11 Funny Car championships, Force is still as hungry as ever to win more races and more titles.
|  | | John Force recorded his 93rd career victory at the Checker Schuck's Kragen Nationals in Arizona. |
"Hell, I hope to keep driving a Funny Car and winning championships until I'm 90 years old," said Force, 51, of Yorba Linda, Calif. "They're gonna have to pull me out of my old hot rod. I ain't going voluntarily, that's for sure."
That's obviously something Force's competitors -- and the next generation of potential successors -- don't want to hear.
But the fact remains that winning just never seems to get old for Force, who is drag racing's all-time winningest driver with 93 victories. To keep his motivation up, Force takes different routes toward each victory and championship.
Take this season, for example.
After struggling in the season-opening race, Force and his team rebounded in Round 2 of the 24-race schedule to win last weekend at Firebird International Raceway near Phoenix, defeating Bruce Sarver. Not only was it Force's first of what he hopes are many wins to come this season (he won 11 races last season), the triumph also marked crew chief Austin Coil's 100th career win as a Funny Car tuner, 93 of those coming with Force. Of course, the venue helped a lot. Force has now won the last three times and seven of the last eight times he's raced at Firebird.
Despite 93 wins and 10 titles, Force says he doesn't have time to get tired of winning. What really drives him is the never-ending battle to stave off his opponents, guys like Ron Capps, Jerry Toliver, Whit Bazemore, Chuck Etchells and Sarver (who Force defeated in the final round at Phoenix).
It's not that Force is greedy. He just likes the challenge of being the best ... and perhaps more than any other drag racer running today, Force does not like to lose.
"When you're No. 1, the only place you can go is down," Force said. "That's something I don't want to do.
"But I'll tell you, there's going to be some real racing out here this year. I know I say that every year, but this year is going to be probably the roughest one we've ever seen in Funny Car. Look at Phoenix: it was the first all-four second qualifying field (all 16 drivers qualified with elapsed times under five seconds) in NHRA history.
"There's 25 or 26 Funny Cars out there now, the two-car team is now a way of life for several teams, not just ours, and there's lots of people who want to go out there and beat up on me."
And Force refuses to be anybody's whipping boy. That's why he is pulling out all the stops to win his 11th crown this year.
Friday, Force announced an unprecedented move in Funny Car annals, adding a third ride -- in addition to his own car and the one driven by teammate Tony Pedregon -- at next month's Gatornationals in Gainesville, Fla. Veteran driver and long-time friend Gary Densham will pilot Force's third car, while Jimmy Prock will serve as crew chief.
"I looked at three or four different people, but I've known Gary for a long, long time," Force said. "He got me out of Australia (Force began his Funny Car racing career overseas in the mid-1970s; Densham was instrumental in bringing Force back to the U.S. and onto the NHRA circuit).
"We needed somebody who could drive the Funny Car right now and help out a guy who can run and has been racing Funny Cars for years. My crew chiefs said we needed somebody with experience and Gary has been doing this thing for a lot of years."
Due to an increased sponsorship commitment from AAA Auto Club of Southern California -- which was Densham's primary sponsor in his own racing effort the past four seasons, and for which Pedregon serves as a spokesman to the Hispanic community -- what originally was planned to be a test machine that would compete at only a handful of events will now be a full-fledged effort for the remainder of 2001. Following testing next week in Houston, the third car effort will be off and running at Gainesville, Fla.
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They're gonna have to pull me out of my old hot rod. I ain't going voluntarily, that's for sure.” |
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—John Force |
Force originally floated the prospect of bringing a third car into the Funny Car ranks last season, only to be met with overwhelming negative response from fans and the media. Some critics accused Force of trying to buy a championship -- with a third car, he could keep another driver from perhaps qualifying for a 16-car race-day field at events. A third car could also serve as a type of "blocker" to help Force and Pedregon run away from the rest of the field.
Force took that criticism hard, eventually dropping development plans due to the negative comments.
This year, the mood of the fans appears different. That's why Force feels it's time to strike while he can and get Densham and the third car up and running as quickly as possible before he starts hearing criticism again.
"It stopped me last year," Force said. "I bought a new truck and trailer, had the car all ready and I was ready to go.
"But you have to understand something that nobody seems to get. So many people were confused. It isn't John Force's two-car team or three-car team against the other one or two-car teams. This is Ford against General Motors and Mopar, and GM has got probably 10 or 11 of the other top drivers in Funny Car out there and Mopar has a few itself.
"So, they can talk all they want, it isn't John Force against Chuck Etchells, or Castrol (Force's primary sponsor) against another oil company. When I bring a sponsor in, they want their own team to win. It's about sharing technology and the growth of the sport. I don't want to be held back for expansion.
"I've got another new car ordered; I should get it in May. I have Jimmy Prock (crew chief for the third car) and seven other employees on the payroll. Do I just let them sit until then just to make everybody else happy? No. The only people I have to please are the fans, the media and my sponsors. Ford says to me, 'We don't care how you beat those other teams, you beat 'em fair and square, but we have to beat General Motors and Mopar.' That's why I'm going to three cars.
"If I say it's not fair to have three cars, then it's simple: Ford will say 'We'll get somebody else.' I'm between a rock and a hard place. All the other drivers and team owners would all have three-car teams if they could afford it."
In addition to a third Funny Car on his team, Force also has a Top Fuel dragster under construction that will debut sometime later this season. While Force himself likely won't step into the Top Fueler until the 2003 season at the earliest, he wants to get a head start on the technology and having his crew members adapt to the nuances of a different racing category. To that end, he will be hiring an as-yet-unnamed driver to wheel the dragster when it makes its debut later this season, followed by a full-bore bid with that same driver for the Top Fuel championship next season.
"I'm building a dragster team for the future," Force said. "What I'm doing right now is training my troops. I'm taking a look at changes in the sport and where I have to be in the future. This is about us and Ford against General Motors and Mopar. I have to win for Detroit."
Prock is one of the most sought-after tuners in the business. After a lengthy stint as crew chief for now-retired Top Fuel driver Joe Amato, Prock briefly joined Tony Schumacher's team late last season.
"I tried to get Jimmy Prock for years as crew chief for a Top Fuel car, because I even thought about the transition for me," Force said. "If I went (to Top Fuel), I wanted to have a team that was ready to go, and me and Coil and Prock could go, and that'd be the way it was.
"Don't misunderstand, Austin Coil and Bernie Fedderly (who serve as crew chiefs on Force's Funny Car) are going with me wherever I go, too. Hell, we might even have two Top Fuel teams. If we can have two Funny Cars now, why not two Top Fuel teams, too?"
While Force has seemingly made winning races and championships almost automatic, that couldn't be further from the truth. Every year he faces the fight of his life on the two-lane quartermile, and this year promises to be the roughest yet.
"This will be the toughest season ever for me," Force said. "The drivers are basically the same, but they've caught up to us in a lot of the technology areas. A lot of them now have the same stuff we have. Just because we've won 10 championships, if you think it's going to be easy for us this year, you're mistaken. It's going to be a dogfight.
"But at the same time, I'm ready, I'm excited, I'm pumped. I'm ready to go, to fight to the finish. The tougher the competition gets, the harder I and my guys work and the tougher we get. This year is no different. But you know what? I wouldn't have it any other way. I love it that way." Send this story to a friend | Most sent stories
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