Force Over Crash, Ready to Get Back to Racing
The 2018 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series season has gotten off to a rough start for the Force family. Sixteen-time Funny Car champ John Force had one of the scariest crashes in recent memory Sunday, February 25th at Wild Horse Motorsports Park. Force’s daughter, Brittany, also had an intense crash two weeks earlier.
But the rough start hasn’t deterred one of NHRA’s all-time greats for being optimistic going forward.
“I feel great," Force said. "I was in the office at 7 a.m. Tuesday morning. Thanks to Simpson. The helmet protected me. I have no complaints. The race car protected me. We build good race cars and we can always try and build them better.”
There is a lot of racing season left for Force and his team, who at 68 years old is still one of the sport’s household names. He wanted to clarify that while he was knocked unconscious in Phoenix, he was not, as was reported by some, knocked out at the season-opener in Phoenix.
While daughter Brittany had said that she couldn’t bring herself to watch her own crash, the veteran elder Force said he went right into dissecting the footage of his crash.
“I’ve watched it over and over trying to figure out what took place," John Force said. "We were lucky we didn’t get into the other driver (Jonnie Lindberg). It dropped a hole early and was going perfectly straight, and in the heat of battle, you aren’t going to lift, I don’t think. You want to win, and it is going, and you think you are going to win.”
While NHRA fans may still not be able to wipe the image of the horrific crash from their minds just yet, the racing legend isn’t worried.
“John Force is good, I am healthy,” said Force. “I am going to get a couple of checkups to make sure I am OK. I was already goofy.”
