![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.nhra.com\/UserFiles\/image\/2013\/Events\/23_Lasvegas2\/sat26.JPG\")
John Force celebrated his \u201cSweet 16\u201d party at the NHRA Toyota Nationals on The Strip at Las Vegas clinching his 16th<\/sup> Mello Yello Funny Car championship by blowing out the candles and dashing the hopes of all his competitors in grand style by additionally winning the race locking in this milestone affair.<\/p>\n He extended his legacy by capping off his championship day with not just another win, No. 138, but had to go through his own JFR team having to defeat his daughter Courtney for the first time in the final round.<\/p>\n He now has won championships with every major sponsor of the NHRA from Winston to POWERade to Full Throtte and now Mello Yello adding to his championship ring collection.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to prove I could still race,\u201d said a jubilant Force.\u00a0 \u201c(Wife) Laurie (Force) has been the best thing for me.\u00a0 She said. \u00a0\u2018If you would quit sitting on the end of the bed whining about what is going on. \u00a0If you get out there and just win then winning fixes everything.\u2019 \u00a0That just got my head right. \u00a0Go win that is what you are paid to do. \u00a0I am good. \u00a0I am tough enough. I am young enough to race and nobody loves it more than me. \u00a0I am the sixteen time champ!\u201d<\/p>\n It was Force\u2019s third win in a row and fourth final in a row. \u00a0The last time Force won three in row was 2005 and it was the 15th time Force has achieved this feat. \u00a0As the No. 1 qualifier Force had to outrun Gary Densham, Del Worsham, Alexis DeJoria and then Courtney Force in the final.<\/p>\n Force\u2019s dream day was almost interrupted in the semi-final race as DeJoria\u2019s Patron Tequila Toyota Funny Car smoked the tires and then Force\u2019s Castrol GTX Ford Mustang lost traction.\u00a0 Force backpedaled his funny car numerous times sashaying down the right lane but still receiving the win light with a time of 5.865 seconds.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t see her run,\u201d said Force, who lost lane choice to daughter Courtney in the finals.\u00a0 \u201cAlexis must have gone up in smoke early. \u00a0As much trouble as I was in only running five seconds, I almost hit the wall twice. \u00a0It was like me and Cruz (Pedregon) in 1992 except then I hit the wall three times. \u00a0There I was going sideways. \u00a0I was hitting it (the throttle) again and then I was off it and then I would hit is again. \u00a0I am thinking she is out there. \u00a0You don\u2019t want to think about it. \u00a0If you look over you might drive over and she will run over you. \u00a0She must have gone up on smoke bad and it took too much time to recover it. \u00a0The biggest thing is she is just a great kid. \u00a0What is cool is she is the future with my daughter and these young drivers.\u201d<\/p>\n In the final, Force and his crew chief, Jimmy Prock-tuned Mustang blasted straight down the their lane with a winning elapsed time of 4.062 second to Courtney\u2019s equally impressive 4.085 seconds, although in the a losing effort.<\/p>\n \u201cI read an article this morning about being humble but after a day like today, I would like to say it was me,\u201d said a joking Force in the Las Vegas media center.\u00a0 \u201cJimmy Prock is unbelievable. \u00a0The team he has around him is awesome. \u00a0I used to race against his dad, Tom, who ran the Tom and Jerry Funny Car and the Detroit Tiger. \u00a0He and Danny DeGennaro got the job done. \u00a0Look at how those cars run side by side.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf there is anything I have done right is putting together this team effort. \u00a0We pulled together when it looked like we were falling apart. \u00a0I have great companies with me and they allow me do this. \u00a0We won them a championship. \u00a0We got a Mello Yello championship but next year I am going to try and win again. \u00a0We are strong with Auto Club with Robert (Hight) and Traxxas with Courtney. \u00a0My luck just turned around in a year when I needed it to sell corporate America. \u00a0I remember Dale Earnhardt used to say \u2018I\u2019ll do the winning and you marketing guys sell me.\u2019 \u00a0I never had the nerve to say that but that guy was a winner so he could do it. \u00a0I have had luck on my side the last three races.\u201d<\/p>\n Daughter, Courtney reached her seventh career final round and Las Vegas has definitely been good luck for the 25-year old driver.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s pretty cool to say that the last time we were here in the spring we were No. 2 qualifier and got a runner-up finish as well. \u00a0Our Traxxas team is good here at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and I think we\u2019ve done a pretty good job of showing that. \u00a0We had a great race car all weekend. \u00a0Ron Douglas and Dan Hood gave me a great Traxxas Ford Mustang Funny Car to drive and, you know what, I\u2019m happy with what we accomplished today,\u201d said the attractive Force.<\/p>\n Pro Stock Motorcycle<\/strong><\/p>\n Winning the Las Vegas Pro Stock Motorcycle race, Matt Smith joined Force on the world champion’s podium to celebrate his second career title. \u00a0He powered his Viper Motorcycle Company Buell to a final round run of 6.991 at 192.08 to beat Jerry Savoie.<\/p>\n Smith has won the last three races, claimed his fourth win this season at LVMS and 17th in his career en route to clinching the championship crown.\u00a0 His father, Rickie, also won the world championship in the NHRA Pro Mod Drag Racing Series this season.<\/p>\n \u201cThis team has been awesome,\u201d Smith said who also won the world championship in 2007. \u201cWhat else can you ask for? \u00a0With me winning the championship and dad winning the Pro Mod championship it\u2019s been great. I don\u2019t want to sound too confident, but we\u2019ve almost been unstoppable. \u00a0We\u2019ve been to 10 finals since Epping and have six wins. Those are amazing numbers for our team.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s pretty elite company to do that,\u201d Smith said of his second championship title.\u00a0 \u201cWe pulled this off and it\u2019s just great.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Top Fuel Antron Brown won the Vegas Top Fuel title by denying Clay Millican for the ninth time of a NHRA Wally Trophy.<\/p>\n Being in second place in the Mello Yello Top Fuel points tally trailing leader, Shawn Langdon by 102, the defending champ knows it\u2019s basically over, but isn\u2019t ready to quit.\u00a0 The next race at Pomona will give Brown a little glimmer of hope.<\/p>\n “Going to Pomona, we’ll stick with our usual mindset that it’s never done until the last race of the year,” he said.\u00a0 “We’re going to give it all we’ve got.\u00a0 We’ll try and get all the qualifying points we can, qualify in the top half of the field, take it one round at a time and see where we end up.<\/p>\n “This just couldn’t have been a better weekend at Las Vegas, and we just have to keep doing what we’ve been doing and see if we can win this championship.”<\/p>\n Brown qualified sixth but was dominant through Sunday’s four rounds of eliminations by winning with times of 3.790 seconds (323.19 mph), 3.808 (323.58), 3.788 (326.16) and 3.782 (324.51) in the championship round against Clay Millican.<\/p>\n “We’ve been hoping and praying, and the Good Lord has been blessing us – we’ve had the jars out and he sure is filling them right now, so anything is possible,” said Brown, who won his fourth title of the season and the 41st of his career.<\/p>\n “Mark (Oswald), Brian (Corradi) and all of our Matco boys have been working so hard.”<\/p>\n The Top Fuel points leader, Langdon, went out in the semi-final round against Millican hazing the tires at the midpoint of the track. Pro Stock<\/strong><\/p>\n Shane Gray weathered a winless streak that spanned 60 national events. \u00a0Five times this season, the relentless team had been to the final round and come up just short. Their luck changed on Sunday, however, at the NHRA Toyota Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway when Gray ended the drought and drove his Justin Elkes-tuned Gray Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro to victory.<\/p>\n “The team needed a day like this so bad \u2013 and sheesh, so did I,” said Gray, who was the No. 4 qualifier in Las Vegas. \u00a0“I’ve let the guys down a couple times this year in the final round, so this was a big boost of confidence. \u00a0It’s amazing what winning will do. \u00a0It certainly lets you know that you’re still capable of doing it, anyway. \u00a0I’m looking forward to going to Pomona because I think I’ll be a little tougher there than I was here.”<\/p>\n The Pro Stock title lead was strengthened for Jeg Coughlin as he came into Vegas with a 45-point edge over Mike Edwards, but he leaves The Strip with a 71-point lead on new second-place driver, Jason Line.<\/p>\n “We knew if we could get another round or two in here, we’d be in good shape, but we just didn’t make it happen, unfortunately,” Coughlin said. \u00a0“Execution is key, and we just didn’t execute today. \u00a0The team did a hell of a job. \u00a0We had a great race car and one of the fastest cars all day long.”<\/p>\n The normally impeccable Coughlin didn’t have his best day in the driver’s seat, but he still almost drove the Dodge Avenger to the final round. \u00a0In the semifinals against V Gaines, Coughlin’s car spun the tires, but he reeled it in and continued to chase Gaines.<\/p>\n “That semifinal round, I let the clutch out, and it just took the tire off,” Coughlin said. \u00a0“It wanted to wash around through first gear, through second gear, even into third gear. \u00a0Man, I was cracking the whip on that thing as hard as I could to get it down there in front of V. \u00a0I knew it was close. \u00a0I could hear him, I could see him, but obviously, it just wasn’t meant to be.”<\/p>\n Coughlin’s pass was 6.700 seconds at 206.23 mph, coming up about 5 feet short of Gaines’ 6.698-seconds run at 207.56 mph.<\/p>\n Coughlin still has work to do in the season-finale in Pomona, Calif., in two weeks.<\/p>\n “We’ll regroup and will have a week off to get all our eggs put back in one basket,” Coughlin said. \u00a0“We’ll prepare as well as we can and go to one of our favorite tracks on the tour, and that’s Pomona.”<\/p>\n NHRA\u2019s season-ending race, the Auto Club of Southern California NHRA Finals begins on Thursday, November 7 with one professional round of qualifying followed by one on Friday with two on Saturday, with eliminations on Sunday, November 10, at 11 a.m. PST.<\/p>\n Photos: Courtesy of NHRA<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Two of the four NHRA Mello Yello Championships wrapped up at Sunday\u2019s Toyota NHRA Nationals with newly crowned champions, John Force and Matt Smith claiming race wins in front of the standing room only crowd on The Strip.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":637,"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":[3465,3399],"tags":[57,76,82,77,79,38,78,83,75,423,72,80,7,4801,74,84,81,73,89],"class_list":["post-627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-nhra","tag-2013-mello-yello-drag-racing-series","tag-alexis-dejoria","tag-antron-brown","tag-courtney-force","tag-del-worsham","tag-funny-car","tag-gary-densham","tag-jeg-coughlin","tag-john-force","tag-john-force-racing","tag-las-vegas-motor-speedway","tag-matt-smith","tag-nhra","tag-pro-stock","tag-pro-stock-motorcycle","tag-shane-gray","tag-shawn-langdon","tag-top-fuel","tag-toyota-nhra-nationals"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/FunnyCarNHRA.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-a7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627","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=627"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":755,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627\/revisions\/755"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n\u201cThe The Al-Anabi team did a great job preparing the car for this weekend in Las Vegas,\u201d smiled Langdon. \u00a0\u201cWe had a very strong car for qualifying and on race day, but we happened to smoke the tires in the semifinals. \u00a0We were just trying to make a similar run to what we had been doing in the earlier rounds, but the track just warmed up a little bit and got us. \u00a0We still have a good lead heading into the last race of the season so we are excited to get to Pomona in two weeks to finish the season.\u201d<\/p>\n