Step right up! Spin the big wheel!
And see what reason you get for drag-racing icon John Force’s absence from the E3 Spark Plugs NHRA Nationals. Not just 151-time winner John Force, mind you, but the entire four-car team that includes defending Funny Car champion Robert Hight, past Top Fuel champion Brittany Force and up-and-coming Top Fuel star Austin Prock.
Missing. All of them. And without an official word from the team or the NHRA.
What has Mello Yello Drag Racing Series observers scratching their heads is the fact that Force, the chatty 16-time series champion, has remained silent. He has shunned media inquiries, including several requests from Autoweek, and chosen not to issue any statement about why he is sitting out while the sport returns from a four-month hiatus. He has left his legion of fans to guess and speculate about what his plan is going forward.
Playing “Rumor Roulette” offers about as much supporting information as anything anyone has received from the team about why it missed Monday’s 4 p.m. Eastern entry deadline.
NHRA president Glen Cromwell certainly would like to have Force and his four cars in the mix for this restart that is being televised live on Fox TV. But he said he doesn’t think it’s appropriate for him to announce Force’s private concerns.
“I think that’s a question for John Force. Any question about John Force is difficult to answer. I think it’s important for John to answer for himself,” Cromwell said. “We all love John Force. We know what he means to this sport. Those are his decisions, and we support his decision.
“We did put out a statement that ‘The John Force Racing team is not registered for the E3 Spark Plugs NHRA Nationals. We look forward to their return in the future,’” Cromwell said.
Ron Capps, the 2016 Funny Car champion, is a longtime Force foe on the track and friend off the track. He reassured us that the 71-year-old Force isn’t planning immediately to announce his retirement. And he expressed faith in Force that his silence surely is for a sound reason.
“One thing I know about Force is he’s not as dumb as he plays out to be. People get this idea that he’s a guy who does stuff off the cuff, old truck driver, and all that. When he says, ‘I need to do something,’ it’s usually for somebody else in his family. And when he says ‘family’ . . . I’ve been considered his ‘family’ at times, and I’m a competitor. I’ve seen him do stuff for the sake of a competitor, to help the competitor and help the sport. I’ve seen him do stuff that’s so unbelievable—like, somebody wouldn’t do that unless their heart was so huge,” Capps said.
“So I know that when he does come out and say what’s going on, it’s going to be something that’s unselfish on his part,” Capps said. “And I guarantee that it’s going to be for the better for his family or for whoever he’s trying to help, for whatever reason.”
Speculation is that John Force Racing sponsors—PEAK/Old World Industries, Auto Club of Southern California, Chevrolet, and Montana Brand/Rocky Mountain Twist/Flav-R-Pac—have had to pull back their financial support in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak. But Force has neither confirmed nor denied that.
“He’s not going to throw somebody under the bus,” Capps said.
Furthermore, Capps said, “He’s not going to come out here and lose money. Bottom line, if he was to come out in these next two races, he would be spending his own money. And thankfully, he’s smart enough not to spend his own money.”
Is Force freaked out about coronavirus? He has constantly talked about how the fans pick up his spirits. So does he worry about how to deal with a swarm of strangers, even if they’re being required to wear masks and practice social distancing?
Force did confess he has left packages that were delivered to his house sitting outside for three days. In his defense, that was at a point when news reports suggested the virus could be spread by touching packages.
“Everybody hears rumors,” Capps said. “I’ve talked to him a couple of times. I talked to Robert (Hight) Thursday night via text. We kind of hear what we think is going on.” But he said of Force, “He’ll talk when he’s ready.”
He said he was certain that Force isn’t contemplating retirement.
“No,” Capps said with authority. “Nope. I’m sure. He has talked about it a lot. And he will, probably, soon rather than later. But no.”
The last time the NHRA hosted an event and no John Force Racing cars were present was in April 2007 at Houston, following the death of team Funny Car driver Eric Medlen.
“They weren’t going to race [at Houston]. They weren’t comfortable, safety-wise, with what was going on. They were going to revamp their cars,” Capps said. “We raced that race. I won that race in Funny Car. It was emotional for me, because I was close with Eric.”
He said he told Hight this week, “It’s going to be hard. There’s lots of good competition, but what you guys bring to make us work harder. And Jimmy [Hight crew chief Prock] pushes any crew chief out here.
“There’s going to be a small asterisk beside (the name of) whoever wins here. It’s not going to be put next to any records. From my standpoint, there’s already an asterisk. When you don’t have John Force out here, it’s because he’s not physically out here, for whatever reason,” Capps said.
It’s clear that this is a glimpse of what the future of the sport might look like.
“Yeah,” Capps said, “and it sucks. He’s our guy. There’s going to be a lot of people tuning in to the Fox network and wondering about that.
“Eighty percent of what you see from me I learned from John Force early on. I stop and think sometimes, ‘What would John do?’ in certain situations. He’s the best we’ve ever seen. It’s going to be weird not to have him here. Of course, Robert, they’re the team to beat. We’ve got great teammates and great cars [at Don Schumacher Racing], but that team has shown time and time again that they will push you to the limit,” he said. “I’m going to miss that this weekend.”
No. 1 qualifiers Saturday were Steve Torrence (Top Fuel), Tommy Johnson Jr. (Funny Car), Jason Line (Pro Stock), and Eddie Krawiec (Pro Stock Motorcycle).
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