Drag racing popped up in the United States soon after World War II was over. Wally Parks founded the NHRA (National Drag Racing Association) in California in 1951. The second largest governing body, the International Hot Rod Association (IHRA) soon followed. Larry Carrier, a Tennessee businessman, founded it in 1970 and it is now owned by Feld Entertainment.
Funny Cars, sometimes referred to as “floppers”, are a professional style of drag racing vehicles. Drag racing is a form of racing where cars race in a straight line that is generally a quarter mile long. Funny car’s features have a forward mounted engine and a car body that resembles the manufacture’s original showroom design. These cars are regarded as “funny” because they look like regular stock cars, but to improve racing performance, their over-sized back wheels were placed in a more forward position on the car.
Funny cars were first designed in the 1960’s by re-shaping regular cars to make them suitable for drag strip racing. In the Heritage Hot Rod series, original models can still be seen competing against one another. Some of the popular models are the Dodge Charger, Chevy Impala and the Ford mustang. In addition to their reformed wheel design, and fuel injector systems, Funny Cars have twin parachutes to ensure a safety of the driver and the fans.
With the unstable and unpredictable economy of the 1980’s and the swiftly advancing technology, small time racers found themselves being pushed out by more lucrative operations. In stepped Ron Leek of Byron Dragway in Illinois. Leek created the concept of bracket racing.
Bracket racing was based on competing against yourself as much as you were racing against the car in the opposite lane. You simply would predict the time you were going to run, and so did the competitor next to you. The racers that were closet to their predicted speed, without going over won. This ensures that consistency is rewarded instead of all-out speed of the race car itself.
Now, slower under-funded drivers could compete against top quality machinery with an equal chance to win. Throw in a cash prize, and suddenly cars were flooding the race track lanes with a chance to compete and win. Because the system worked, bracket racing today is a staple at almost every venue in the nation.
John Force:
John Force put Top-Fuel Funny Car racing on the map for good. The 16 time national champion Force began his career in 1974 and continues to be competitive to this very day. His last championship was won in 2013 at the tender age of 64.
Things didn’t always come that easy in the beginning. Force’s reputation as “disaster on all four wheels” was known throughout the Funny Car racing world in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. For nine whole seasons he failed to win a single NHRA event. Force was looked down upon as a” half-baked racer” who blew up his engines and parts all over the track.
In 1986, with the arrival of crew chief Austin Coil, Force’s career started getting traction. With his newly acquired sponsors, Coca-Cola and Castrol Oil, fellow racers started to take Force’s Funny Car racing seriously.
Between 1986 and 1992, Force won his first race in 1988 in Montreal and a year later won his first race in the U.S. in Columbus, Ohio. The crafty driver then went on to claim his first NHRA Funny Car championship in 1990. By 1994 he became the winningest driver in Funny Car history, when his ten victories put his career total at 42.
He didn’t stop there. From 1995-2013, Force won 12 more Funny Car championships, making it ten seasons in a row from 1993-2002. His 143 victories is the most in NHRA Funny Car history. In 2012, his accomplishments culminated into his enshrinement as a first ballot nominee, into the Motorsports Hall of fame in Talladega, Alabama.
John delegates much of his time and effort to building up John Force Racing. His drivers include himself, Robert Hight, and his two daughters Courtney and Brittany Force. Eric Medelin, John’s good friend and past driver, died racing for Force in 2007. All of the racers John now employees have the #4 on their cars in his honor.
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John Force continues to add to the record books everytime he hits the track. In 2015 he will be getting back to his racing roots, racing the PEAK anti-freeze coolant Chevy Camaro SS Funny Car. He will be trying to capture an unprecedented 17th Mello Yellow Series championship. There are few professional racers that have had such an incredible an illustrious career as John Force.
