![\"John](\"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/John-Force-round-1-min.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
It happened again, for the second time in two NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series races: A John Force Racing car had a huge, frightening accident in Sunday eliminations.<\/p>\n
As with Brittany Force\u2019s Top Fuel whack of two walls in Pomona just two weeks ago, this weekend\u2019s horrific crash by her father, 16-time NHRA Funny Car champion John Force, caused more damage to the two cars involved than it did to either driver.<\/p>\n
The 148-time NHRA national event winner was taken to a nearby hospital once removed from his Chevrolet Camaro SS, but was released by late afternoon Sunday, able to return to Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park to congratulate his youngest daughter Courtney, who ended nearly a two-season drought with her victory in the class at the 34th annual NHRA Arizona Nationals.<\/p>\n
Much like his near-fatal crash with Kenny Bernstein at Dallas\u2019 Texas Motorplex in 2007, John Force\u2019s blower explosion at the finish line\u2019s 1,000-foot mark released his PEAK Coolant & Motor Oil Camaro\u2019s body as it careened cross-track and contacted Jonnie Lindberg\u2019s Toyota Camry. The duo\u2019s parachutes tangled and they moved together to the opposite side of the track. NHRA\u2019s Safety Safari was on-site before either Funny Car had stopped.<\/p>\n
The 68-year-old Force was helped to the ambulance and then the hospital for his evaluation. Lindberg was uninjured in the crash. As he did when Brittany had her accident, John Force praised the work that\u2019s been done to increase safety in these 10,000-plus horsepower racecars; since the March 2007 death of team driver Eric Medlen, safer chassis construction, head and neck restraints, better helmets and other passive safety restraints have allowed more drivers to walk away from explosions and subsequent crashes of this nature.<\/p>\n
After a blown tire caused his 2007 crash, John Force was airlifted to the hospital, spent six hours in reconstructive surgery and several months doing intensive rehabilitation before returning to NHRA Funny Car competition in 2008. Two of his record-breaking 16 championships came after that crash; John Force has continued a rigorous training schedule that likely helped him better survive this explosion and crash.<\/p>\n
Still, for the life-long racer, \u201cThis was a great day for John Force Racing. Brittany came back from a crash at Pomona and won her first round; Courtney won Funny Car for Advance Auto Parts. My struggles continue,\u201d Force said, \u201cbut I\u2019m a big boy. I\u2019ll fix it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Courtney Force, who was visibly shaken when her older sister crashed her Monster Energy Top Fuel dragster in Pomona, is discovering just how strong she is as members of her family crash around her. After winning her first race since Houston 2016 – nearly a two-year span – Courtney Force said her team told her, \u201cYou don\u2019t have to get back in this race car if you don\u2019t want to,\u201d following her father\u2019s accident.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told them I\u2019m good; let\u2019s get down there and have a good run and just take it round by round. It\u2019s the same race car we\u2019ve been running,\u201d she said. \u201cYou just have to block out all the mental noise of that and know this is the race car you know how to drive. [Matt] Hagan came up to me and said, \u2018You\u2019re a great driver and you know how to do this. Just clear your head.\u2019 It was kind of nice to hear that.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"John](\"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Courtney-Force-round-1-min.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
After the No. 1 qualifier easily beat Hagan, she had a bye in the semifinals as her father was unable to answer the call – they were on the same side of the elimination ladder. Force, married to Verizon IndyCar Series star Graham Rahal, raced Don Schumacher Racing\u2019s Tommy Johnson Jr. in the finals, gaining her ninth pro victory. Johnson had his own massive explosion in Saturday\u2019s first qualifying session and was seeded sixth for eliminations. He defeated Hight, newcomer Richard Townsend and former Top Fuel standout Shawn Langdon to reach the finals.<\/p>\n
Two weeks ago, after Brittany had her accident, team president and reigning two-time Funny Car titleholder Robert Hight went to the finals, falling to Matt Hagan. This weekend, it was up to Courtney Force to carry the family brand forward. Although her team had only 40 minutes to prep the car and no time to start it prior to the semifinal bye run, and despite the fact she didn\u2019t have lane choice for the finals, \u201cI had the utmost confidence to get in the car today because of the job my team does on it, so to get a victory at this race and take home a Wally at the end of the weekend is pretty incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Phoenix track was difficult for everyone in the NHRA pro ranks. After qualifying in downright cold and windy conditions, conditions were much different on race day. There was sun, the track was warmer and it was difficult for the crew chiefs, who didn\u2019t have the usual data for the type of conditions they were seeing, to get a handle on the strip.<\/p>\n
Everyone gets a couple of weeks to heal before the third race of the season, the Amalie Oil Gatornationals in Gainesville, Fla., March 15-18. In the John Force Racing compound, the R&R is pretty much a necessity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It happened again, for the second time in two NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series races: A John Force Racing car had a huge, frightening accident in Sunday eliminations.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":49383,"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":[3465,3470,5029,3399,22],"tags":[5614,77,5280,75,423,1819,41,7,1632],"class_list":["post-49381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-news","category-racing","category-nhra","category-event-coverage","tag-anne-proffit","tag-courtney-force","tag-drag-racing-crash","tag-john-force","tag-john-force-racing","tag-mello-yello-drag-racing-series","tag-news","tag-nhra","tag-racing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/John-Force-round-1-min.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-cQt","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49381","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\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49381"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49384,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49381\/revisions\/49384"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}