{"id":30587,"date":"2016-09-23T13:01:56","date_gmt":"2016-09-23T20:01:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=30587"},"modified":"2018-08-16T12:36:12","modified_gmt":"2018-08-16T19:36:12","slug":"brittany-force-ready-to-serve-notice-in-nhra-countdown-chase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/brittany-force-ready-to-serve-notice-in-nhra-countdown-chase\/","title":{"rendered":"Brittany Force Ready to Serve Notice in NHRA Countdown Chase"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Brittany<\/p>\n

The Monster Energy Top Fuel dragster team driven by contender, Brittany Force was one of the few in her class to advance up a position in the Mello Yello standings from last Sunday\u2019s NHRA Carolina Nationals. Although, it was just one position from fifth to fourth, the significance through it all is she is still primed and optimistic about her hopes in climbing back into contention and she\u2019s ready to make a little noise about it.<\/p>\n

The 30-year old Force came into eliminations 60 points behind Antron Brown and left the Tarheel State heading to St. Louis this weekend, 116-points out of the lead with five Countdown races to go with 20 points counting for each round win.<\/p>\n

\"NHRA<\/p>\n

In her opening round against \u2018The Greek\u2019 Chris Karamesines, she set low elapsed time of the round with her time of 3.759 seconds, 321.81 mph leading to a crucial quarterfinal matchup in the second round against the defending Top Fuel champ, Brown holding lane choice.
\nShe had previously beaten Brown in the finals at Brainerd and was again up to the task given her equal time, but lost by five feet in one of the closest side-by-side races of the day. She ran a time of 3.797 seconds to his 3.796-second pass matching her opponent in time, but was a hundredth of a second behind at the finish line.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Charlotte, second round against Antron really would have been a big move for us to get past that team to really advance forward and move up in the points,\u201d said Force. \u201cHey, they\u2019re on top of it. Congratulations to them on winning that weekend. That was a shame that we missed it, but it was a close drag race though.<\/p>\n

\"Brittany<\/p>\n

\u201cI could see him right next to me and I couldn\u2019t tell, you know, who won the thing. I mean it was that close. It was a great drag race for the fans and our car was running right next to his. It\u2019s just unfortunate he got by us right there in the end. But that\u2019s how drag racing goes.\u201d
\nThat round loss hasn\u2019t diminished her spirit and she still feels the future has lots of promise coming her way and in the sport of NHRA Drag Racing, stranger things have happened, but it\u2019s still performance that counts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe definitely moved up from fifth to fourth but it\u2019s really the beginning of the Countdown is your best shot to move up the field,\u201d said the three-time Top Fuel winner. \u201cAfter Indy, all the points reset and everyone is on an even playing field and it\u2019s really your chance to make your move to claim your spot and get ahead of everybody else.<\/p>\n

\"Brittany<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s still quite a few races left and it can still be done. We went to second round, so we moved up to fourth, so that\u2019s something we can be proud of and we\u2019ll just have to keep going after it.\u201d
\nAt this stage it\u2019s all about points and for Force qualifying is paramount in just not preparing for race day, but the possible qualifying points known as \u2018small points\u2019 that add up pretty quick and could make the difference in positions at the end of Pomona, NHRA\u2019s final race of the season.
\nShe has qualified in the top half of the field every race in 2016 claiming two No. 1 qualifiers at Topeka and Chicago setting her personal best elapsed time in Kansas at 3.676 seconds in May.
\n\u201cAt this point, every run you make down the racetrack has to count for something,\u201d said Force. \u201cYou have to be set up ready to go for race day on Sunday. Having four solid runs down the racetrack is giving you your best shot at it. Getting qualified in the top half of the field every race; you can gain points that way. Every point matters when it comes down to the end of it.<\/p>\n

\"Brittany<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, I\u2019ve heard about many people who have lost the No.1 spot in the championship just by a few points. It definitely could happen. Every point matters. No mistakes can be made when you\u2019re this far along in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the cooler weather of fall coming into the picture at some of the key races of the Countdown in late October and November, her John Force Racing team\u2019s anticipation lead by crew chief, Brad Husen and tuner, Alan Johnson definitely sways their way. This team has enjoyed early season success that sent her to victories at the Gatornationals, her first, the 4-Wide Nationals and at the recent Lucas Oil Nationals in Minnesota in August under cloudy skies.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere we struggle is in the heat,\u201d she said. \u201cThat says to us, it was great weekend in Charlotte to make some solid passes, qualified good and we went to round two, but the good news for us is our car went down the track in the heat. The track temperature on Sunday was 130 degrees. It was a hot day. That was good for us especially learning that part of it. Yes, we\u2019re better in the cooler temps and we\u2019re hoping that for Reading. We\u2019ll see what we get.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Brittany<\/p>\n

She knows that her equipment is equal to anyone out there on the track and with a break here and there, who knows how all this will fall out. That\u2019s her motivation and has such confidence in her Monster Energy team in the car they bring up to the starting line. It\u2019s a tuner\u2019s game for the remaining five NHRA Countdown races and if anything comes your way, every team has to be ready to ramp up the car\u2019s performance up to a certain point, but not over the edge.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in the Countdown now,\u201d said Force. \u201cThere\u2019s only five races left and you want to push the car to make sure you make good runs and you qualify in the top half of the field. Make sure you turn on the win light. It\u2019s tricky because you don\u2019t want to push too hard to where you blow up and you don\u2019t get it down the track at all and it\u2019s hard to find that balance. You play it safe, but you\u2019re still pushing ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NHRA AAA Insurance starts Friday with TV coverage on FOX Sports 1 starting at 7 p.m. with qualifying highlights airing at 2 a.m. on Sunday morning, Sept. 25; on FS1 with final round eliminations LIVE at 2 p.m. that afternoon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brittany Force was one of the few in her class to advance up a position in the Mello Yello standings from last Sunday\u2019s NHRA Carolina Nationals. <\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":30593,"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":[3465,17,3399],"tags":[3945,424,2507,75,3718],"class_list":["post-30587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-guest-column","category-nhra","tag-2016-nhra-mello-yello-series","tag-brittany-force","tag-jfr","tag-john-force","tag-nhra-drag-racing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/BForce-winners-circle-Nastase-e1474660898193.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-7Xl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30587","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\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30587"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30594,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30587\/revisions\/30594"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}