NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series

Photos and story © 2005 Dwight Drum
Web work by Gary Larsen

King of Wins
© 2005 Dwight Drum

Driver, Castrol Ford Mustang Funny Car

“You have to sleep in your car.”

“You have to be one with your car.”

Time: Early season 2005
Event: Gatornationals
Place: Gainesville Raceway

Specific Place: John Force pit compound

KING OF WINS
© 2005 Dwight Drum

Welcome to part two of Zoomster.com’s one-on-one interview with John Force.

“Have you ever seen those Samurai warrior movies like the one with Tom Cruise? He said you become one with your sword. You become one in your race car. You need to know your car. I read an article last week my daughter Ashley said dad told me the first time she got her dragster, I told her to spend the night in it. And she got in the car and I don’t know if she spent the night. But I’ve spent the night in my car a number of nights. Maybe because I got too emotional and drank too many beers and I fell asleep.

The bottom line is it’s good to know your car, because you need to know it when it’s on fire, you can’t see anything through the smoke and the fire. You better know where the brake handle is. You better know where the shutoff switch is. You better know where the parachutes are. And how do you learn that? It’s called cockpit orientation. Get in there and have them blind you and get to know that car inside and out. Become one with it and drive it as one. When it shakes, you shake. So that’s the bottom line. Be one with your car. Know your hot rod is what I’m saying.“

“Well. Jack Roush besides being a great racer is an innovator. Roush was building not just race cars to win championships. And Roush came from drag racing from what I understand. He got in with Ford and started building technology for Ford not only to apply to a Taurus or as we do for a Ford Mustang. But he built his company to where he is needed by Ford not just at the races but to build the product and the technology. And when you’re not winning that keeps you under contract and when you win that’s the icing on the cake. So Roush is able to do both, so if I can be compared to Roush then I’m in good shoes. “

“People have actually said that I get out of the car that I was so winded like they thought I was in a foot race. They don’t realize what you got through in that four or five seconds. All hell breaks loose out there. You’ve got to keep that front end down by pulling the brake handle or peddling the car. You’ve got to keep it in that groove when it’s trying to get out. You’ve got to know if it’s pulling you out of that groove, because you’re out of that groove or the header has dropped a cylinder and it’s shoving you out of the groove. You need to know what’s going on. Man, you’re all fired up.

“That will get you one part of making money and that’s to win. When you get out of that car the big paycheck is to plug those sponsors. And people don’t want to hear you just get out there and just rap off Castrol, Ford, Mactools, AAA. They don’t want to hear that. They want to hear what went on.

“The way I’ve found what works best is because I’ve done interviews where they never played them, because it gets too corporate, too commercial. So if you’re able to slip it in there and say like man, my old heap went out there and dropped a hole in one of those Autolite spark plugs and it fired back up and made it win the race. Well, that is how you slip a plug in there. You don’t talk about – oh I drive a Ford Mustang. You say – my Mustang went down that highway. And that way you can do it and you never break.

“That’s how I’ve learned to talk. A lot of drivers like Ron Capps and Eric Medlen talk like that.

“Well, I don’t know what to say because I’m one with the fans. I’m the blue-collar worker. I’m not a suit and tie guy. I get up every morning and put on my old work shoes just like they do. And I go to work. If I’ve got to work on the car, I do. If I got to get greasy or dirty, I do. But I can stand in a boardroom. I can cook food out here with our chef. I can talk corporate America into giving us money to run these fine race cars.

“But bottom line, I spent 30 years standing at the ropes. Cause we had no money. If they hadn’t brought me cake, cookies and cheeseburgers, I might have starved to death. In that I found the value, the real value of the fans. Not just that they buy the products that you sell. You know that’s a big plus, but because they love ya. When they love ya and when you’re down and out and when you win, they love you more. If you treat them good when you’re on top, they’ll support ya. When you fall, they’ll stay by ya.

“Never forget where you came from. I try and it’s hard when 40,000 people go through a racetrack at Gainesville every day, it’s really hard to sign every autograph. But if I can’t sign them all, I keep talking. So if a guy there knows if you can’t get to him, you tried. I’ve had a few complaints over the years, a few, because sometimes you do miss a kid who stayed late in the day and he’s soaking wet and you couldn’t get to him. Because some days you get the call and you have to go to the starting line, you’ve got to do live TV, whatever. They dragged me out here a while ago.

“The truth is they became my friends. I’m closer to the fans than I am to race car drivers around me. I’m closer to the fans and I can honestly say more than my own crew. Not that I don’t love my crew, but I spend more time at the ropes. When the crew needs me I get in there and warm up the car. We have prayer with Roger Stahl. He leads our prayer. I’m there. The rest of the time I’m at the ropes or doing TV or radio. Bottom line. Coil said once if you want to warm up the car go and get in line with the fans and get an autograph and tell John it’s time.

“If you stood out there and felt the ground shake and I stood there with newcomers and what? Earthquake. They thought that. You shift this car and get four, five, six G’s out of a hot rod and you shoot a guy down the racetrack. You know what I mean? And it’s covered a quarter mile at 334 miles an hour – it’s unbelievable! And the fans they experience that with you. That’s what NHRA brings to the party. They can watch from the stands, from the fences and then they come into the pits and they hear them rumble!”

“But the real key is that for me, it starts the minute they buckle me in. The radio – it’s like Houston – we’re ready for takeoff. And you’re talking to Coil and Bernie and all the guys and they’re playing jokes on me. I’m talking to Eric and Robert and telling them I love em’. And let’s go out there and rock n’ roll. Elvis lives. It’s all this conversation and then in the middle of it, they fire that motor and you see the confidence in Coil’s face or – you see fear in Coil’s face – when it ain’t going down the racetrack. And then it goes or it doesn’t.

“Just the thrill of the ride and the big old smoky burnout. You know sometimes I hear the crowd and I know I can’t hear over the sound of the motor. But I think I hear them. Because you know that sound when they roar when you do that smoky burnout. And when you make that run or when you’re on fire and get that big number.

“When you get out of that car, you can see everybody. The guys out there are rolling up your parachutes. The Safety Safari, the NHRA guys, they all yelling you ran that big number. You ran that first 4.60 run. And they yelling, you’re God. Whoa. Don’t even say I’m God. There’s only one God.

“No. I just got a great crew chief and a great team. They bless you with something that nobody else has done. We’ve done a lot of that in our time.

“I just want to say thank you. I really enjoy your show. Fans come to me with comments of what you guys say and what they read and hear. I just appreciate you because you put a lot of time and effort in it. That’s what grows our sport. Like I said, we want to be just like NASCAR and you’re going to help us get there. Thank you.”