Drag Illustrated Issue 148, September 2019 | Page 36

Dirt Prock gets first Top Fuel win while Force earns 150th Funny Car victory By Sara Slaughter J ohn Harold Force, who as a kid battled polio and poverty while dream- ing of a career in professional sports, applied an exclamation point to one of motor racing’s most unlikely success stories on Sunday, August 4th when he drove his PEAK Coolant and Motor Oil / Lighting Chevrolet Camaro SS to a final round victory over Ron Capps to win the 32nd annual Magic Dry Or- ganic Absorbent NHRA Northwest Nationals at Pacific Raceways. It was the 150th Mello Yello tour victory for Force, who already has been enshrined in the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in Talla- dega, Alabama, and the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in Daytona Beach, Florida, and who most certainly will be a first ballot inductee into the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame in Ocala, Florida, once he retires from competition. “Well, it’s been 25 races, Denver last year,” Force said. “(Crew chief Brian) Corradi and Dan- iel Hood and (Tim) Fabrisi have had to put up with me all year, not happy with the way the car steered, how I sat in it, not happy with so many things. And then I got the monkey on my back and it drives you nuts. You go to bed every night and (but) the monkey taught me so much, that you need to focus on your car if you want to do good. I’m just doing stuff all the time and I don’t even know my car. 36 | D r a g I l l u s t r a t e d | DragIllustrated.com “And you know Corradi and (Austin) Coil said, ‘You’ve got to get to know your car. You’ve got to live it. You’ve got to love it. You’ve got to study the drivers.’ I said I do all that, but I wasn’t. So sometimes you need a slap in the face. And that was the monkey that made me focus. To live my car and it’s been fast the last four or five races. Give me a good race car, I can race. I may not be as young as these kids and a hot shot on that Tree. But I’m excited. The future of our sport. There’s so much potential out here.” That’s a remarkable accomplishment for someone who didn’t earn his first NHRA tour victory until he was 38 years old and whose first 50 races on the NHRA circuit produced no wins and 17 DNQs. “Never thought I’d be lucky enough to get five wins,” Force admitted. “I remem- ber going to nine finals and some- body says ‘Hey, is this like winning your first championship or your first final round?’ I said don’t put that in my head. It’s too crowded in there. I had to stay away from it, not think about it. TV was set- ting up special shows about me and then I fail. But I didn’t fail; I was doing the best I could. Failure is part of it and that’s what I told Brittany. When you get that gut ache and turn it into a positive. That’s the key.” Force’s latest milestone was made all the sweeter by the fact that he shared the podium with rookie Top Fuel driver and teammate Austin Prock, who drove the Montana Brand / Rocky Mountain Twist dragster to a breakthrough vic- tory that included a final round upset of reign- ing series champion and runaway point leader Steve Torrence. “Danny Hood and I, we called that from the get-go. We said when John gets 150, I’m going to get my first one,” said Prock. “It all came together just perfectly. I’m just pissed that Force is going to steal the cover of National Dragster.” Force’s march began with an opening round victory over Jim Campbell secured with the quick- est time of eliminations at 3.895 seconds. That set up a second-round showdown with teammate, protégé and points leader Robert Hight, driver of the Auto Club Chevy Camaro, to whom he had Issue 148 DRAGSTER Northwest Knockouts