The Force family added two more Wally awards to their collection last weekend at Gainesville Raceway, which is outside of Gainesville, Florida. No, John Force didn’t get any more wins than the 143 he already had, and Courtney Force didn’t get any more wins than the seven she already had. Brittany, the second-youngest daughter, was the one who won in the end.
Brittany Force is in her fourth year on the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series tour. She has been so close so many times. Brittany finally won her first professional race, going up against a sixth different opponent in the finals of the Monster Energy Top Fuel rail, which was her eighth trip to the final round and second in a row.
The 2009 Funny Car winner, Brittany’s brother-in-law Robert Hight, also won that day. It was the first time on the tour that John Force Racing had won two races in a row. John Force, Brittany’s father, has won 16 titles and had many drivers for second, third, and fourth Funny Cars on the NHRA tour. However, this chance didn’t come up until Brittany started racing a Top Fuel dragster.
What makes the accomplishment even more impressive is that her mother Laurie Force was named the winner of this year’s Pat Garlits award on Thursday night, before the races started. The award is given to a woman who best represents the family strength needed to win NHRA race titles and championships. The award is named after Don Garlits’s late wife, who died a few years ago. Laurie Force has done a lot of great things with class and style, even though she raised her three girls, Ashley, Brittany, and Courtney, mostly by herself.
It was nine years too long for former truck driver John Force to start his own huge winning streak in the NHRA’s Funny Car class. Most people, including Force, think that’s because he hired tech Austin Coil and trusted him to tune a Flopper. Alan Johnson, an uber-Top Fuel tuner, was hired by John Force Racing this year to help Brittany win her first race. Johnson has won races and championships with Gary Scelzi, Tony Schumacher, Khalid al-Balooshi, Larry Dixon, Shawn Langdon, and, in the first race of 2016, Steve Torrence. His late brother Blaine was also in these teams.
In fact, Johnson is helping both Brittany Force and Steve Torrence this year in Top Fuel. So far in the 24-race season, he has helped two drivers win Wally trophies and get into the Traxxas Shootout race within a race, which takes place over Labor Day weekend at the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals. It was Leah Pritchett who won in Phoenix.
Johnson is helping the team, and JFR also hired Brian Husen, who won titles for Alan Johnson Racing in Top Fuel, to be Brittany’s on-site crew chief every day. In 2011, Husen helped Del Worsham win his first Top Fuel title. In 2015, Worsham won the Funny Car championship with Kalitta Motorsports.
The path Brittany took to win the Gatornationals
Brittany Force was fastest in the 47th annual Amalie Oil Gatornationals’ Friday time trials after losing to Leah Pritchett in Phoenix. She finished four rounds of qualifying in fifth place, behind Richie Crampton, Clay Millican, Antron Brown, who has won two Don Schumacher Racing NHRA TF titles, and Pritchett. Morgan Lucas, newcomer Tripp Tatum, former Pro Stock star Dave Connolly, and senior Terry McMillen were all beaten by her. Two of the finalists were looking for their first win.
With this win, Brittany Force became the seventh Top Fuel driver to do so at the Gatornationals. It was also her 75th race in the class. She is the fourth woman to win at the famous Gainesville Raceway dragstrip. The others are the great Shirley Muldowney, Angelle Sampey, and Karen Stoffer.
She also totally overshadowed Hight’s achievement of winning his third Gatornationals in Funny Car. He had won before in 2012 and 2014 (it looks like even-numbered years are good for JFR’s president in Florida). When Ron Capps crossed the center line, eliminating his Dodge Charger R/T, Hight’s Chevrolet Camaro SS was on top and could win. This was Hight’s 37th win in Funny Car – in 57 final rounds – and one he’ll remember as it marks the first time two John Force Racing partners have held the points lead in two different classes.
Before this race, Hight was in third place in the title race. He passed Capps, who had been in first place and won Pomona, after Capps won last weekend and set a new track record for the 1,000-foot category at an amazing 327.43 mph. We felt like we could have won a couple of races because our cars were so good in the first two. It doesn’t get any better than coming in here to get it done with Brittany and both of us leaving here with the points lead.
Not often does John Force Racing have a weekend
John Force Racing won two races at an NHRA event last time, in the last race of 2004. John Force, the clan’s father, won the Funny Car category, and Ashley Force Hood won the Wally in the Lucas Oil Sportsman Top Alcohol Dragster category. Once again, it was a family event. The only non-family members to compete and win with JFR are Tony Pedregon, Gary Densham and the late Eric Medlen.
Everyone in the Force family is expected to get together this weekend to celebrate Easter. With John Force in charge of the family winners, it’s sure to be a wild party. However, it will be family, and in NHRA drag racing, that’s what counts. When groups like the Force clan win, it makes the game even better.
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