COURTNEY FORCE OFF TO FAST START WITH HOPE OF GATORS WIN
GAINESVILLE, Fla. (March 5, 2013) – This time last year, Courtney Force was preparing for her third professional start in the Funny Car category. Today, Force is sitting No. 2 in the point standings, having qualified No. 1 and collected a win at the season-opening Winternationals at her home track, and is ready to take on Gainesville Raceway for the 44th annual Amalie Oil NHRA Gatornationals.
At the last NHRA event in Phoenix at Firebird Raceway, Force qualified in the No. 2 spot, picking up bonus points along the way. Now, Force sits just 45 points behind Ron Capps in the NHRA point standings.
“I’m excited going into the Gainesville race, especially coming off of a win in the opening race in Pomona. I’ve got a great team behind me and look forward to coming to this track, and taking what I learned from here last year and improving on it,” said Force
Last year at this same event, Force qualified in the No. 11 spot and lost to Ron Capps in the first round of eliminations.
“I feel that our Traxxas Ford Mustang team has come a long way from when we were racing in Gainesville just a year ago. When I was competing at the race track last year, it had only been my third race as a rookie driver. This track was new and unfamiliar to me, and I struggled. I hope that I can take everything I learned from throughout last season and really improve with my performance going into Gainesville. I’ve got a great crew chief, Ron Douglas and Dan Hood, tuning my race car and a strong, motivated, group of guys on my team which gives me that extra push of confidence,” said Force.
During the first qualifying pass on Saturday, Force drifted right and smacked the wall hard enough to cause severe body damage, bend the right side header to the ground and leave it scraping the track surface. She quickly exited the car and made a point to let everyone know she was unharmed and ready for the last qualifying pass of the weekend.
“After brushing up against the wall last year, it definitely showed me that things happen in these cars when you least expect it. As a driver, I think I’ve learned a lot from having an entire season under my belt and I really want to take everything I have learned and use it to my advantage in Gainesville. Although I struggled here last year, and I’m still a new driver and have a lot to learn, I can’t wait to get back on this race track because I am very eager, and I’m confident in myself that I can perform better. It was a tricky track for me last year, and I really hope that I can learn from it and overcome it to do better my second time around,” said Force.
The NHRA drivers and teams have had a few weekends off since last competing in Phoenix for the second event of the 2013 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing series season. Force took advantage of the downtime and accepted an invitation to fly with the U.S. Navy Blue Angels, an honor teammate and brother-in-law Robert Hight had the pleasure of doing in 2007.
“I had an incredible time. We hit 7.3 Gs and went over 700 mph and when we hit Mach 1 and broke the sound barrier I was amazed at the feeling. This day wouldn’t have been possible without the support of Auto Club of Southern California and I know I will never forget this experience,” said Force.
The recently-named 2012 Rookie of the Year by RACER Magazine will have an even busier week before Gainesville. Force is set to participate in an NHRA media tour in the Orlando area before competing at Auto-Plus Raceway for the 2013 fan-favorite Gatornationals.
FORCE LOOKING BACK TO MOVE FORWARD
15-Time Champion Returns to Gainesville Track He Once Dominated
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – With long-time crew chief Bernie Fedderly’s Thursday induction into the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame serving as a backdrop, John Force tries to recapture the form that once made him unbeatable in the NHRA Amalie Gatornationals contested this week for the 44th time.
In the early 1990s (1992-96), Force won five straight times at the track now known as Auto-Plus Raceway at Gainesville. Not only did he win, he dominated. He won from the No. 1 qualifying position in 1992 and 1995 and posted the quickest time during eliminations in 1993, 1994 and 1996.
The fifth of those wins, secured with a final round victory over Chuck Etchells, was the 50th of his career, a milestone eclipsed many times over on the way to his current total of 134. He remains the only pro driver in the NHRA’s Mello Yello Series to have won as many as 100 races.
However, in a “what have you done for me lately” sport, Force is trying to put a pair of ninth place, one-win seasons behind him and return to championship viability with a Castrol GTX Ford Mustang that showed some real potential three weeks ago when it raced through the 1,000 foot course at Phoenix in 4.047 seconds at a track record 316.82 miles per hour.
The rub is that despite the performance numbers, he wasn’t able to get his Castrol Ford to the final round.
The reality is that the 63-year-old icon has appeared in just three finals in the last 47 tour events. Now, that may be okay for some, but not for a 15-time series champion who, on the average, has been in every third final round 36 seasons (216 times in 613 events).
To address the issue, the former big rig truck driver has re-united with Mike Neff and the crew with which he won six races and the championship just three years ago.
He also has a new chassis beneath him to which Neff still is making adjustments.
“I’m excited to be back racing with Mike Neff instead of racing against him,” Force said. “He did a great job for Castrol, Ford and JFR as a driver, but he came to me at the end of last season and told me that doing both jobs – driving and tuning – was becoming too much. He said he never had any time to just think about the set up and the tune-up.”
Neff’s return exclusively to the mechanical side, from which he has won a pair of championships (one with Force in 2010 and the other with Gary Scelzi in 2005) significantly raised the level of expectation for Force. Now all he has to do is deliver.
“Nobody wants to hear about past championships and race wins,” said the man who last year was a first ballot inductee into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in Talladega, Ala. “And that’s how it should be.
“That’s what keeps me motivated,” he said. “I want to show Robert (Hight) and my girls (Courtney, who won the season-opening Winternationals in the Traxxas Ford, and Brittany, who drives the Castrol EDGE Top Fuel dragster) that I can still compete for a championship. I’m excited.”
DEFENDING CHAMP HIGHT READY TO GET BACK TO GATORS
YORBA LINDA, CA (March 11, 2013) — Two weeks off between races gave Robert Hight and the Auto Club team some time to regroup after a sluggish start to the 2013 Mello Yello Drag Racing season and to focus on the upcoming Amalie Oil NHRA Gatornationals, March 14-17, 2013.
In the first two races Hight has battled tough qualifying efforts and qualified for both events. They picked up a dramatic first round win in Phoenix over Johnny Gray when Gray’s Pitch Energy Dodge brushed the wall advancing Hight to the second round. For a team of Hight’s caliber and with their own high expectations qualifying isn’t enough. They want to be one of the elite qualifiers and round winners. They currently sit in the 10th spot in the Mello Yello point standings with the goal to move up this weekend in Gainesville.
“We have not started out with the kind of success we were expecting after the off-season we put in. Jimmy Prock and my guys busted their butts all off-season and unfortunately we haven’t seen the results yet. It is only two races but we are not going to get dow
n. We are going to be ready for the Gatornationals,” said Hight.
“We won this race last year. We had some weather show up on Sunday so we had to win it on Monday. I would love to repeat and get the win on Sunday in front of one of those huge Gatornationals crowds.”
Last year rain rolled in after the second round forcing Hight to win two rounds on Sunday and two rounds on Monday. Hight defeated three DSR Funny Cars on his way to victory besting Ron Capps, Jack Beckman and Johnny Gray in the final.
Hight might not be off to the strong start he and crew chief Jimmy Prock had envisioned but this driving tuning combo will not be held back for long. They have won more races together over the past five seasons than any Funny Car tandem. Hight has won at least two Funny Car events every year of his career and last season Hight won four races in a row becoming just the fifth driver in NHRA history to put together such an impressive streak.
“I want to dominate a whole season. There are still twenty-two races left and the most important are the six that are in the Countdown. We moved up into the Top Ten last race but we want to be up in that number one spot. The Gatornationals is one of the races like Indy that you have to have on your resume as a former winner. I got my win last season and I would love to get another win in Gainesville this weekend,” added Hight.
On the off time between races Hight spent time at the famed March Meet at Auto Club Famoso Raceway and also attended the Mac Tools Tool Fair in Dallas.
“I went to Dallas for the Mac Tools Tool Fair and that event is really cool because you see all the new tools and tool boxes Mac Tools is rolling out. We also got to spend time with their distributors and their families. It was a fun time. When I went to the March Meet it was like going back in time. There was some rain but I loved seeing all the old school Funny Cars and Top Fuel dragsters,” said Hight.
ON-THE-JOB-TRAINING FOR TOP FUEL ROOKIE
Aspiring Teacher Brittany Force Gets 320 MPH Learning Experience
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – On-the-job-training takes on a whole new meaning when the job is trying to herd 10,000 straining horses into a straight line.
That’s the challenge confronting rookie Brittany Force this weekend when she sends one of the world’s most powerful race cars, a Castrol EDGE Top Fuel dragster powered by a supercharged Ford BOSS 500 engine, to the starting line for the 44th annual Amalie Gatornationals at Auto-Plus Raceway.
Although she tested in a Top Fuel dragster for an entire season under the tutelage of her father, 15-time NHRA Funny Car Champion John Force, the 26-year-old graduate of Cal State-Fullerton has acknowledged that some lessons can’t be learned in the classroom.
For instance, there’s the art of “backpedaling,” which essentially is feathering the throttle to regain traction if the rear tires unexpectedly begin to spin.
The schoolteacher-to-be got her first competitive opportunity to practice the technique three weeks ago at Phoenix, Ariz., and while she wasn’t able to rein in her 320 mile-an-hour hot rod in time to hold off veteran David Grubnic in the Arizona Nationals, it wasn’t a negative experience at all.
“That first round was the first time I stepped on (the throttle) and had to pedal it,” she said. “It was good experience for me since I had never done that before. That’s not something you can test. It just happens and you have to react.
“I stepped on the gas twice and it got a little close to the wall the second time, so I lifted (off the throttle).”
It wasn’t the first time Brittany had ever backpedaled, but it was the first time she had done so in one of the world’s fastest accelerating vehicles (zero-to-100 miles an hour in LESS than a second).
“It’s a lot more challenging to pedal than my A/Fuel dragster,” she said, referencing the car she drove for two years in the NHRA’s Top Alcohol Dragster class, one in which she twice started NHRA national events from the No. 1 qualifying position.
“It was easier to keep the A/Fuel car under control,” she admitted. “This one surprised me, but I was able to handle it. I just need a little more practice and I’ll be fine.”
She may get that practice this week when she again tries to become the first driver in 43 years to win a round in the NHRA series at the wheel of a Ford-powered Top Fuel dragster. The last driver to do so was the late “Sneaky Pete” Robinson when he beat Bob Murray in the second round of the 1970 U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis, Ind.
Despite a pair of first round losses to start her rookie campaign, Brittany and her crew chiefs, Dean “Guido” Antonelli and Eric Lane, nevertheless are encouraged by the fact that she was competitive.
Ousted by Brandon Bernstein in the season opener at Pomona, Calif., 3.785-to-3.822 seconds, she then lost a “pedalfest” to Grubnic, 5.580 to 5.851, after being ahead early-on.
Although she really doesn’t know what to expect at Gainesville, a track on which her only previous competitive experience came in the entry level Super Comp class, she is anxious to get back into the cockpit.
“I’m looking forward to it,” Brittany said. “We’ve had a little bit of time off but it’ll be nice to be back on the track.”