FUNNY CAR

John Force and Matt Hagan in the second round. (Ron Lewis photo)

John Force and his Chevrolet Camaro SS Funny Car team battled all day but in a true team effort he picked up his 142nd career Funny Car win and the first behind the wheel of Chevrolet Camaro SS at the 16th annual SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals. Force had to outrun teammate Robert Hight in one of the closest races of the weekend, a side-by-side race that was decided by two thousandths of a second at the finish line. The win for Force was the culmination of months of planning and rebuilding both on financial and personnel fronts.

Force’s 248th final round was in jeopardy midday and without the help of the Auto Club Chevy Funny Car team prior to the semi-finals there would not have been a 45th all JFR Funny Car final round.

“We saw that we had a problem and we had to switch out motors. This was about 40 minutes before the semi-finals. All my guys and all of Robert’s Auto Club guys were working and we got it done just in time. We had a tow strap break and my guys had to push this Chevy all the way up to the starting line almost,” recounted Force in a packed pressroom. “(Crew chief) Jon Schaffer and these young guys, I call them The Replacements like from the movie, really came together today and I am really proud of everyone at John Force Racing. We are rebuilding this team and today showed we are going in the right direction.”

Force had a tough first round match-up against Chad Head. It was a critical round for Force when you consider he was sitting in the No. 13 position in the Mello Yello points and Head was two slots in front of him. A loss would have been a major setback but crew chief Jon Schaffer had a winning combination for Force and took the win 4.138 seconds to Head’s 4.337 seconds run. This momentum helped propel Force up to No. 6 in the Mello Yello points by the end of the day, a massive seven spot jump up the points ladder.

In the second round Force was giving up lane choice to reigning world champion Matt Hagan but once again Schaffer and the Chevrolet Camaro SS team gave Force a chance to get the win as he blasted down the right lane in 4.158 seconds as Hagan smoked the tires in the left lane and had to watch as Force advanced to his first semi-final of the season.

The semi-final race versus Alexis DeJoria was almost anti-climactic after the pre-run drama in the pits. A problem was discovered with less than 45 minutes before the call time and the Chevrolet team and Auto Club team immediately jumped into action swapping motors and re-firing it in just over 30 minutes and making the call. Force’s Chevy Camaro SS once again flew down the track this time with a solid 4.165-second pass on a much hotter track setting up the possibility of an all JFR Funny Car final.