Force & Force taking funny car by storm

BY SPENCER CAMPBELL
BRISTOL HERALD COURIER

BRISTOL, Tenn. – The temperature on the track at the Bristol Dragway hovered around 120 degrees on Saturday. But business at the merchandise huts was even hotter – at least at the Team Force trailers.

Mark Skidmore of Fairbury, Neb., waited patiently outside the Force trailer, before picking out a spent John Force piston, autographed by the driver , and one of Ashley Force Hood’s used racing boots. Total price? $142.03.

“Their reality show got me hooked,” Skidmore said. “I saw so much of myself in [John Force]. He’s a short-tempered man who couldn’t handle living with women. That stuff just means a lot to me.”

For 33 years, John Force has been one of the most successful and popular funny car drivers in NHRA. Recently, however, the father has begun sharing the stage with another Force, his daughter and employee at John Force Racing, Ashley Force Hood.

Together the father and daughter starred in A&E’s “Driving Force”, a reality show that documented the Force family’s life. Even Force Hood’s pet cat Simba has received a fair share of the spotlight. After appearing on ESPN2 with her owner, merchandisers were swamped with requests for a poster featuring the pet with its owner. 

“I think we have that popularity because drag racing’s different than NASCAR,” Force said. “We’re at the ropes all day [signing autographs]. The fans know they can get in here and get an autograph.”

After three decades in drag racing, Force has made it his responsibility to welcome as many fans as possible – a repayment for the support her received when NHRA was struggling.

But simple hospitality would be cutting the senior Force short. Fans like Skidmore have become attached to Force through the sheer power of his personality. Force is unguarded in interviews, a trait that was on full display after his second qualifying run at the NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals at Bristol Dragway.

Asked what it would take to beat Force Hood, who topped the qualifying, Force intimated that he might need his daughter to get pregnant, in order to equalize the 60-pound difference between the two.

“You’re going to have women coming up and slapping you,” Force Hood told her father. “Saying you’re going to put some pregnant girl in a racecar. People are going to start bringing me baby clothes now.”

But tact isn’t among Force’s strong suits. Among the topics he brought up with Force Hood and his wife, Laurie, during a 15-minute conversation were “the pill,” Catholics and if he is or isn’t one, and just where a baby’s umbilical cord attaches.

While privately appalled at her father’s choice of discussion subjects, Force Hood realizes that it is his honesty that endears him to fans.

“He says exactly what he’s feeling,” Hood said. “I think the fans like that. ... Even though you can’t understand half the things he says sometimes at the end of the run, that’s what people like because they’re hoping you’re excited when you get to the end of the run.”

Thankful for the national presence that drivers such as Force have given drag racing, Force Hood hopes to incorporate her father’s lessons as she pushes the sport into new demographics.

“Especially being a female, maybe I can get a little easier into a magazine like Self or Home and Garden and connect as females,” Hood said. “It is a benefit in that way where we can reach out and into a new world.”

Of course, new publicity isn’t always great, as Hood found out when she was recently featured in Penthouse magazine – in an interview, not a pictorial. With the majority of her fan base made up mostly of families and young girls, she said, a risqué photo shoot isn’t an avenue she intends to travel.

“Luckily, nothing bad happened [from the Penthouse appearance],” Hood said. “Except that my proud father went out and got the magazine. We’re going through American Airlines check-in and he tells the lady, ‘Look, my daughter’s in this magazine.”

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