1/4_Mile_King

He's off to the worst start of his career and sits outside the top 10 at midseason for the first time since 1982, but no one – especially John Force – is counting out John Force.

On the heels of yet another first-round loss – his eighth in a season that also included his first DNQ since 1987 and the death of protégé Eric Medlen – Force and the Castrol GTX team stayed at Summit Motorsports Park following the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals in Norwalk, Ohio, to try to rid his Ford Mustang of the demons that have plagued it all season.

The team members spent all Sunday night putting together a new chassis, towing it through the Summit Motorsports Park pits to set the toe-in and other adjustments, then ran some 4.80s Monday that made them feel a little better and a lot more determined. (“We always run great on Mondays; I can't wait for Indy,” he quipped.)

He knows he has a long road to travel to make up for a disastrous start and to prove – to himself maybe more than anyone – that he's still "the Man."

“Don Prudhomme said to me once, ‘When it ends, it ends. You're winning, and then one day it quits,' and I've gone 15 years watching every day thinking it could end,” said Force. “I'm not going to let it end now, because I'm not going out this way. I'm not a loser, and I don't accept losing and neither do my sponsors. We will fix this. Austin Coil is one of the most brilliant minds out there and Bernie Fedderly puts the polish on Austin, and together we'll bring this car back from the dead.”

Plenty of potential factors might have led to the team's struggles, but Force says he's leaving no stone unturned to uncover the source of their woes. He looking for answers, not excuses or blame.


Force's daughter, Funny Car rookie Ashley, has four times as many round-wins as her dad this season and beat him head to head the first time they raced, in Atlanta. "I can't even beat my own kid," he says.
There's the usual litany of items that puts Force on “overload” – including Medlen's passing and Force's pursuit of better safety equipment; the training of his daughters Ashley, Brittany, and Courtney; construction of new racing shops in Brownsburg, Ind.; and the demands of the Driving Force television show – but the A team also is dealing with the loss of two other key personnel that hasn't made life any easier. Dean "Guido" Antonelli, who for 12 years was the right hand for Coil and Fedderly and trained new crewmembers, moved over to become crew chief for Ashley, and, after 18 seasons, Kevin McCarthy is off the road and managing the team's shop facility in Brownsburg.

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