John Force Racing (JFR) is in the midst of changes. Shortly before the 71st Cornwell Quality Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals, traditionally held during each year’s long Labor Day weekend, the team took time to reminisce about its founder’s history of more than 50 years in NHRA racing. John Force has been the face of Funny Car racing since the 1970s, egged on to success by his own determination and by the hiring of quality crew chiefs like Austin Coil and Bernie Fedderley.
Force’s history in the sport is immense: his 16 championships in the full-bodied nitro category will stand. As will his 157 victories and a slew of decisive successes in qualifying and racing in NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series straight-line racing. Force, injured at Richmond in 2024, announced his retirement from racing just prior to the aborted In-N-Out NHRA Finals at Pomona, scheduled for the second weekend of November, but never contested due to atmospheric rivers in Southern California.
The changes continued after the crowning of Austin Prock, JFR’s second-consecutive Funny Car titleholder, racing under the auspices of this team, Cornwell Tools, Chevrolet and a host of partners over the past two seasons. Prock, together with his Hall of Fame-headed crew chief father Jimmy Prock and brother Thomas, who’s learning crew chief duties from his father, have departed the team, just as two-time Top Fuel champion Brittany Force, one of John Force’s four daughters, announced that she is joining sisters Ashley and Courtney in starting a family.
Suddenly, JFR was left with at least two seats to fill. The dragster component was completed with Josh Hart taking over the Top Fuel slot that Brittany Force occupied, after selling his eponymous team to Elite Motorsports. The second Funny Car position will now be filled by Alexis DeJoria, who has been working with all-female JCM Motorsports this season after a few years on her own with Del Worsham’s DC Motorsports. In her Flopper career, DeJoria had been affiliated with Kalitta Motorsports before stepping away from the sport. She returned with the DC Motorsports squad, led by former two-class champion Del Worsham, before joining JCM, together with Top Fuel European champion Ida Zetterstrom.
John Force Racing intends to field four teams during 2026’s 20 events, NHRA’s 75th anniversary season. Double slots in Funny Car are now filled, with DeJoria joining veteran and 2012 Funny Car champion Jack Beckman, driver of the PEAK Chevrolet. DeJoria, with six NHRA Funny Car national event wins in 16 final-round jousts leading to six top-10 season-long results, will continue to be partnered with Bandero Premium Tequila, a gold-medal-winning spirit. DeJoria’s contract with JFR is a multi-season agreement with the team that owns 24 total NHRA nitro-fueled championships.
“Being asked to join John Force Racing is a huge honor and an incredible opportunity to build upon my career,” DeJoria acknowledged. “Since day one, my goal has been to become the sport’s first female Funny Car world champion, and that is what I have been working towards for many years. I’ve been fortunate,” she said, “to drive for some of the best teams and team owners out here. To be invited to drive for John Force Racing means so much to me and is another step forward in my career. JFR has a Funny Car program that’s unmatched, and the results speak for themselves; all you have to do is look at their track record.”
The first woman in NHRA Funny Car competition to post a three-second romp on the 1,000-foot dragstrip when she hit an elapsed time of 3.997 seconds during the 2014 Winternationals in Pomona, CA, DeJoria worked her way to Funny Car through stints in Super Gas and Super Comp, starting in 2005. She won a national event in Super Comp before moving to Top Alcohol Funny Car (TAFC) in 2006. DeJoria ran her own team from 2009-2011 and became only the second woman to win a TAFC national event in the 2011 Northwest Nationals at Seattle. Later that year she completed her nitro Funny Car licensing and moved to this tough professional class.
A six-time Funny Car No. 1 qualifier, she earned her first round win defeating, of all people, John Force in the initial 2012 Gatornationals round. Her first national event Funny Car win came in 2014 at the Arizona Nationals in Phoenix; she again beat Force later that year in the final round of the U.S. Nationals; thus far in her career, that victory is her biggest win.
A third Funny Car racer will be named soon for the Cornwell Quality Tools Chevrolet SS machine, making this the fourth time John Force Racing has competed with four nitro teams in the two classes. The 2008-9 lineup featured Funny Car drivers John Force, Robert Hight, Ashley Force and Mike “Zippy” Neff. John Force, Robert Hight, Courtney Force and Brittany Force were the 2013-18 foursome, while John Force and Hight competed in Funny Car while Brittany Force and Austin Prock raced Top Fuel during the 2022-23 seasons.
“Alexis is a fierce competitor who has earned her place in the Funny Car ranks. It’s great to have her become the newest member of our team,” said John Force. “I’m obviously pretty familiar with the dynamic between father and daughter competing in NHRA drag racing, so I respect and admire what Alexis and her father, John Paul, have built together over the years. John Paul is a global success story who understands the importance of both family and business partnerships, which is exactly what John Force Racing has been built on. Our team just earned our 24th World Championship, but I’m already looking forward to getting started on next season.”
The 2026 campaign marks the first time none of the drivers for John Force Racing will have the family name. Further announcements about John Force Racing’s pending programs will be announced in the coming weeks, most likely at the upcoming Performance Racing Industry show in Indianapolis next week.
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