1. John Harold Force was born on May 4,1949 and is an American NHRA drag racer.
54 Facts About John Force
1. 2.
John Force is a 16-time NHRA and 1 time AHRA Funny Car champion driver and a 22-time champion car owner.
3.
John Force is one of the most dominant drag racers in the sport with 157 career victories.
4.
John Force graduated from Bell Gardens High School and briefly attended Cerritos Junior College to play football.
5.
John Force is the father of drag racers Ashley Force Hood, Brittany Force, and Courtney Force.
6.
However, in 2010, after a 2009 season in which John Force did not win a single race, John Force parked his 4th car, and named Neff as his new crew chief instead.
7.
John Force was born to Harold and Betty Ruth John Force in the Los Angeles suburb of Bell Gardens, California.
8.
John Force survived childhood polio with therapy and perseverance of his mother and family.
9.
John Force played football in high school and attended Cerritos College.
10.
John Force has five siblings, Walker, Louie, Tom, and Cindy Hem were all older than John Force.
11.
Younger sister Dana did not grow up in the same house or spend any time with the family in the early years of the John Force Family Racing activities.
12.
John Force is a realtor by trade, but is Aunt Dana to Adria, Ashley, Courtney and Brittany.
13.
In 1971, John Force drove the Jack Chrisman-built Night Stalker Mustang, his first funny car.
14.
John Force drove a Chevrolet for 1994, quickly changing to a Pontiac in 1995 and 1996.
15.
John Force was a Ford driver and team owner from 1997 until 2014, when he returned to Chevrolet.
16.
Between 1987 and 1996, John Force won sixty-seven of 203 NHRA national events, four of nine Big Bud Shootouts, and six World Championships.
17.
In 1996, with Austin Coil tuning, John Force went to the final round in sixteen of nineteen national events, taking thirteen wins, one of the best records ever in Funny Car history.
18.
Between 1997 and 2006, John Force went to the final in 105 of 228 events and took sixty-one tour wins.
19.
John Force then had Castrol Motor Oil jump on as his main sponsor, and was even more successful.
20.
John Force then had fellow driver and arch-rival Cruz Pedregon's younger brother, Tony, come aboard to drive John's 2nd car.
21.
In 2001, John Force had longtime friend and fellow drag racer Gary Densham drive a third car.
22.
In that same year, John Force finished as the champion, which he followed up with an astronomical 10th straight world title in 2002.
23.
Eric Medlen, son of long-time JFR crewmember John Force Medlen, came on to race.
24.
In 2000, John Force was sponsored by BP's Castrol brand, continuing the relationship between John Force and Castrol that began in 1985 and lasted through 2014.
25.
John Force guest starred as himself in a 2004 episode of King of the Hill, in which Dale Gribble donates a kidney to John Force, after which it appears he does not need it.
26.
In 2005, John Force won 5 events, but only finished third in the championship standings, 32 points behind champion Gary Scelzi, and 24 points behind Ron Capps, both of Don Schumacher Racing [DSR].
27.
In 2006, John Force won his 14th NHRA World Funny Car Championship, defeating Capps in the quarter-finals of the Automobile Club of Southern California NHRA Finals which mathematically eliminated Capps and teammate Robert Hight from the championship.
28.
John Force went on to win the event, his third of the season and 122nd of his career.
29.
John Force rebounded, winning the O'Reilly NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals in Bristol, Tennessee, then proceeded on to three more final rounds, winning another race in Sonoma, California, putting him fourth in points and allowing him to make the first cut in NHRA's new point system, the Countdown to the Championship aka the "Countdown to Eight".
30.
John Force stumbled again in the next two races but, again, rebounded until his crash.
31.
On September 23,2007, John Force was injured in a crash at the O'Reilly Auto Parts Fall Nationals in Ennis, Texas as he crossed the finish line against Kenny Bernstein.
32.
Bernstein's Funny Car drifted into John Force's lane, clipping the final timing cone and a foam block which shot into John Force's lane.
33.
Injuries sustained were a broken ankle, abrasion of his right knee, a dislocated left wrist, and badly mangled fingers and toes, and John Force had to be airlifted to Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas.
34.
John Force finished 9th, daughter Ashley finished 2nd, and Mike Neff placing 10th.
35.
The start of the 2010 season saw John Force celebrate 25 years with the same sponsor, as well as 34 years in the NHRA.
36.
John Force started the day 38 points behind 28-year-old Matt Hagan, who ran for team rival Don Shumacher and his team.
37.
John Force then went on to victory beating Melanie Troxel in the semi-finals and in the final, defeated Jeff Arend.
38.
John Force now has the distinction of being the oldest NHRA champion in history.
39.
Long-time crew chief Austin Coil resigned from John Force Racing on November 16,2010.
40.
John Force would drive Force Hood's new Ford Mustang with Dean Antonelli and Ron Douglas tuning, sponsored by Castrol Motor Oil.
41.
Out of the 11 testers so far, John Force is 1st, Hight was 5th, and Neff was 6th.
42.
Rather than find another driver to take Ashley's place within the Castrol GTX Funny Car, John Force did something he had never done before, field a Top Fuel car, with daughter Brittany behind the wheel.
43.
John Force competed in the 2015 racing season with a new sponsorship deal from Peak Antifreeze.
44.
John Force won four races during the 2016 season at The Mile High Nationals at Bandimere Colorado, The Sonoma Nationals in Sonoma California, The Toyota Nationals in LasVegas Nevada and The Carolina Nationals in Charlotte NC.
45.
John Force expressed extreme relief after winning, his first words to the camera being obscenities.
46.
John Force was not present in the winners' circle, having ridden his pitbike to the stands to watch Austin Prock, a driver on his Top Fuel team and son of a John Force Racing mechanic, win his first race and was still celebrating with fans while Prock was being interviewed.
47.
John Force further celebrated the 2019 season by winning the US Nationals.
48.
At Dallas for the first time since 2018 John Force was set on fire in a crash that echoed his win in 1996 where his Castrol car caught fire at this track.
49.
John Force gained a win of the season at the 4-Wide Nationals in Charlotte, NC.
50.
John Force won the Saturday Final at the Arizona Nationals in Chandler, AZ.
51.
Force won the first final on Saturday, while Austin Prock, his teammate and son of John Force Racing crew chief Jimmy Prock, won the Sunday final.
52.
John Force then doubled at New England Dragway in the first New England Nationals since 2022 by winning the Mission Foods Challenge for semifinalists at the previous round in defeating Blake Alexander on a holeshot that counts towards bonus points in the Countdown, then defeating Prock in the main elimination tournament's final round for his 157th victory.
53.
In June 2024, John Force suffered a traumatic brain injury in a fiery crash at Virginia Motorsports Park after his engine exploded at the end of a run.
54.
John Force was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 2008.