JOHN FORCE:  ALWAYS A MASSIVE SALES JOB! In 1988, I booked John Force into our annual 64 funny car event in late June of that year. As a promoter you have to “cut the deal”, worry about the arrival of the stars of the sport and in Seattle, of course, the weather.

With the ads blazing away on a dozen radio stations locally, I find out that John Force is booked into a match race in Englishtown, New Jersey the weekend before Seattle. All of a sudden, the pressure builds as I need John in Seattle on the Friday prior. He was the front-line car in all of the ads and he has to drive across the country in 3-4 days to make it in time for this event.

Mid-week, I get a phone call from Force and he is in a truck stop somewhere in the Midwest saying, “Rockstad, I gotta have more money as these truck permits are killing me.” I said, “Force just get here on time”.

A day later he is closer at a truck weight station saying, “this deal is killing me, we gotta talk more money”. The good part of all of this was he was closer to the west coast. “Force, just get here”…….as my stomach tightens up again.

The day before his needed arrival another call from Force, “I’m coming but the deal has to be better”. Early on Friday morning, in rolls the semi of JFR. Force jumps out of the truck with his mouth going two hundred miles per hour telling me how he can’t make it
with the deal we have and he has thousands of dollars in truck permits by driving across the US. (as if it was my fault that he attempted to make both events with just a few days in between).

As nervous as I was when he arrived, I’d pay anything to have him in the event. I could plainly see that he hadn’t slept for days but he said he’d be there….and he was there.

On Saturday, he “spit” the driveline out of his car and was unable to make the call, at the time needed. He came back later that day and ran well, as usually.

I’ll certainly have to say that John Force says he’ll be there and he doesn’t let a country of highways and not much time slow him down.

And yes, I did pay him extra money as “Mr. Sales” did it again….but it was hard to deny this guy with that much determination. My stomach quieted down on Monday. -- Jim Rockstad

This Force moment was at Orange County in 1975. We were trying to qualify for a Saturday night show when, on our last attempt, we started, the body came down and Force is off on his burnout. Plugger finds some tracks and I’m doing my job out front guiding  the car back in the tracks.

When he gets to where I’m putting the car, he stops and I motion to him to go back; he sits there. Then I see through the windshield and he’s pointing down and I’m thinking all kinds of things: Broken reverser, two-speed handle broken, etc.

But no, the problem was his seatbelt had came undone when he was reaching for the brake handle. Now the car’s running, and he motions me to me to dive into the cockpit  and put his seatbelt back together. And I thought, “No way!”

But it was our last chance to qualify, so I motion for him to hold the brake, and in the window I went. and the engine’s banging and popping. I got all the straps in one hand. When I strapped him into the car I always made sure the belts  were extra tight, so the were still tight and I needed about another quarter of an inch of slack to buckle him in.  We were running out of time, the engine was getting hot, and we were burning up fuel. . So I yelled at him  “ Suck your stomach in.”  He just looked at me. So I held the clasp and straps in one hand and with the other gave him a punch in the stomach, and at the same time  tried to  close the clasp. It worked. He continued to back up, staged and made the qualifying run. -- Bob Fisher (former Force crewman)