Force defends two titles at auto club raceway

At Auto Club Raceway, a track on which he was undefeated a year ago, one on which he has won 14 NHRA tour events and a record 105 racing rounds and one on which he came from behind to claim a memorable 2010 Full Throttle Championship, John Force this week confronts yet another challenge.

 At age 61, drag racing’s biggest winner rolls into the 51st annual Kragen O’Reilly Winternationals in a new car prepared by a new crew managed by two new crew chiefs, new to him at least.

 After 25 seasons with Austin Coil as point man, Force won his 15th series title last year with Mike Neff making the difficult tune-up decisions.

 This year, the responsibility for keeping the 132-time tour winner on top of his game will fall to crew chiefs Dean “Guido” Antonelli and Ron Douglas and a young crew that for the last four seasons worked its magic on the Castrol GTX Ford driven by Ashley Force Hood.

 With Force Hood’s competitive role reduced to that of cheerleader while she and husband Dan await the August birth of their first child, dad will fill the seat of the car that the 28-year-old drove to an NHRA national speed record last year (316.38 miles per hour).

It won’t be an easy transition for the man just voted RACER Magazine’s Racer of the Year for 2010. After all, he won six times last season with a John Force Racing-built chassis beneath him and Neff, Coil and Bernie Fedderly behind him.  This year, he’ll be strapped into a Murf

McKinney chassis prepared by a crew of relative neophytes.

 Still, rivals have learned that just because everything is different for the iconic Force, doesn’t mean anything has changed.  Make no mistake, when he rolls the latest of his Castrol GTX High Mileage Mustangs out of the trailer this week, no matter who is handling the tune-up and no matter what the differences in hardware, Force will be the favorite not just to win the race, but to win the championship.

 Except for a couple of competitive speed bumps following a 2007 crash at Dallas, Texas, it has been so for more than two decades.  Consider that John Force Racing has won 17 Funny Car titles in the last 21 seasons and that Force has secured 15 of them himself, finishing in the Top 10 in Funny Car points a record 26 consecutive seasons.

 From 1987, when he won his first race, to the present, Force successfully made the transition from quarter mile to 1,000-foot racing; from old chassis design to new; from 5,000 horsepower to 9,000; from 270 mph to 330 (and then back to 316).  He adapted quickly to the Funny Cars-versus-Top Fuel dragsters concept floated in the Winston Showdown in 1999 (winning a record $205,000 as the inaugural champion) and to the still controversial four-wide concept pioneered at zMax Dragway in Charlotte (winning the inaugural 4-Wide Nationals just a year ago)

 The truth is, while Force is considered old school in so many ways, he has demonstrated himself to be uncharacteristically open-minded about change.

 “I don’t know if change is working for (President Barack) Obama,” he has said, “but it’s sure working for John Force.”

 The question, of course, is how much longer it will work.

 “I know I can’t drive forever,” Force has said.  Entering a new season, though, long-suffering rivals probably aren’t so sure.