{"id":24220,"date":"2016-02-22T14:02:10","date_gmt":"2016-02-22T22:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=24220"},"modified":"2016-02-22T14:02:10","modified_gmt":"2016-02-22T22:02:10","slug":"can-courtney-force-return-to-the-glory-days-of-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/can-courtney-force-return-to-the-glory-days-of-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Courtney Force Return to the Glory Days of 2014?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Courtney
Courtney Force’s 2015 Funny Car. Photo: Courtesy of NHRA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Even though she was eliminated in the second round of the season-opening Circle K Winternationals \u2013 by brother-in-law Robert Hight, no less \u2013 Funny Car driver Courtney Force still has her sites set on a big season in 2016.<\/p>\n

Barely missing the NHRA Countdown to the Championship last season, Force is bound and determined to get back to the kind of season she had in 2014, when she earned a career-high four wins, became the winningest female in Funny Car history and earned the 100th win by a female driver in the NHRA.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a far cry than from what happened in 2015, when she failed to get past the first round of eliminations in 15 of 24 NHRA national Events, and finished a career-worst 11th in the final standings.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year was tough,\u201d admitted Force, who is preparing for this weekend\u2019s CarQuest Auto Parts Nationals at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park, just outside of Phoenix. \u201cThere\u2019s really nothing I can point fingers at, but I definitely think it\u2019s going to make us feel a little bit better going into this year. We\u2019re staying positive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Admittedly, it was tough for the entire John Force Racing organization in 2015. Team patriarch and owner, 16-time Funny Car champ John Force, finished seventh in the standings, one of the worst showings he\u2019s had in years.<\/p>\n

\"Courtney
Courtney Force. Photo: Courtesy of NHRA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hight had the best season of all among the JFR racers, ending up sixth in Funny Car. And Courtney\u2019s older sister, Brittany Force, finished seventh in Top Fuel.<\/p>\n

But Courtney had the worst season of all.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was hard, for sure,\u201d she said. \u201cEvery week, we went out there. At the start of the season, we were like, \u2018No, we didn\u2019t have it this weekend, but we\u2019ve always got next weekend.\u2019 The time window to get in there started to get smaller and further away.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Missing the Countdown) was definitely a shock. We had Indy (the U.S. Nationals) to try to make some magic happen and it was out of our hands. We couldn\u2019t do much about it. We went out and that was just the way it was going to be. We just kind of had to take it, learn from it and move on.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was definitely a bummer. Since my rookie year, I\u2019ve been in the top 10 every year. But I think it will only make us stronger for this year, which is probably the most important thing that came out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

John Force has upgraded both Brittany\u2019s and Courtney\u2019s programs for 2016. He\u2019s brought in 11-time champion team owner or crew chief Alan Johnson to help put Brittany on a better-performing road.<\/p>\n

And as for Courtney\u2019s team, John Force elected to go with a co-crew chief operation in 2016: Dan Hood (husband of sister and former racer Ashley Force Hood) and Ronnie Thompson, who previously worked on Brittany\u2019s Top Fuel dragster.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the two of them are going to work well together and I\u2019m excited,\u201d said Courtney Force, who is now in her fifth year with primary sponsor Traxxas. \u201cWe brought in a couple new people and switched a few positions. We\u2019re definitely in our routine again and the test at Phoenix (earlier this month) definitely helped. We\u2019re really just keeping a positive attitude going into this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

That positive attitude starts from the top. John Force.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want this to be a big year for my girls,\u201d John Force said. \u201cI want both Courtney and Brittany to have a big year.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is a very pivotal year for the Force sisters. Dad\u2019s not getting any younger (John turns 67 on May 4), and both Brittany and Courtney are among the most popular young drivers in any NHRA pro class.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time for them both to challenge for the championship in their respective classes. And while Dad has guided them to this point, the rest will be up to them to fulfill his hopes of, as he said, \u201ca big year for my girls.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s always a little bit of pressure because he is my dad, but not really so much from him, maybe just more on myself,\u201d said Courtney, who married IndyCar star Graham Rahal last November. \u201cI\u2019ve always put a lot of pressure on myself since I started racing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI push myself hard out here because I really love being in these cars and this opportunity, I\u2019m just trying to take full advantage of it and really show these sponsors what we\u2019re capable of.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter a rough year like we had last year, I\u2019m ready to get these things turned around and get back to how we used to be. We\u2019ve won a lot of races, we know how to win and having the support of my dad, no, he doesn\u2019t put that pressure on me, which is nice. I\u2019m very lucky that I get to stay on as a driver for his team. I put pressure on myself more than anything.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I’ve become mentally stronger as a driver going into my fifth year of racing and have learned through all the ups and downs. I think any mistake you make as a driver is only for the better and you can take so much away from that if you choose to look at it with a positive attitude, and that’s what I’m doing this season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Follow me on Twitter @JerryBonkowski<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Courtney Force had a brutal 2015 Mello Yello season compared to her success in 2014? Can she come back from that and return to a competitive place again?<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":24222,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3465,17],"tags":[3815,77,2,38,3384,2507,423,7,440],"class_list":["post-24220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-guest-column","tag-2016-nhra-mello-yello-drag-racing-series","tag-courtney-force","tag-drag-racing","tag-funny-car","tag-jerry-bonkowski","tag-jfr","tag-john-force-racing","tag-nhra","tag-robert-hight"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/001-CourtneyForceTestingCandid_Feature.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-6iE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24220"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24224,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24220\/revisions\/24224"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}