REIMAGINED JFR TRYING NEW APPROACHES
For at least a decade, success seemed to come easily for Funny Car racer John Force. His reputation morphed from leaker to legend almost as fast as his 337.33-mph career-best speed. He seemed untouchable, even sold T-shirts with the word emblazoned on them. As if 2007 (the year the sport lost John Force Racing rising star Eric Medlen and nearly lost Force, as well, in a catastrophic accident at Texas Motorplex) weren’t jarring enough, along came 2020. Coronavirus and all its attending issues had a negative impact on everyone to some degree. But for Force, a man with a staggering $8 million payroll, the pandemic packed an especially powerful punch.
Force planned to come back with his full four-car team as soon as the sanctioning body gave everyone the green light. In the meantime, he tried to keep all of his employees working, even against the adamant advice of his attorneys. He tried to remain loyal to his staff, his sport, and himself. But overwhelming financial dictates made him do something decidedly un-John-Force-ish: throw in the towel for a full year. He said he couldn’t bring himself even to say “coronavirus” or “COVID-19.” He just called it “19.” He dreaded it for its ruinous potential, both medically and financially, and finally had to admit that he had found an enemy tougher and meaner and more unforgiving than he ever thought nemesis Al Hofmann could be.
But just like he did when he was young and lived in his car parked in brother Walker’s driveway and existed daily on a boiled egg and soda pop, John Force survived. Nothing coronavirus threw at him could stop him. Walker Force wasn’t surprised. Years ago, he said of the brother called a daredevil, “You can knock him down, whip him, stomp on him, but the next day he’ll be knocking on your door.”
The team had its casualties, chief among them Top Fuel driver Austin Prock. Force said he reduced his number of employees “from 100 to probably 50 – and I won’t go back to 100. I had to salvage my operation.” So he parked one car, and that left the 2019 NHRA rookie of the year without a ride. He isn’t without a job – he’s the supercharger specialist for Robert Hight’s Funny Car, working alongside crew chief dad Jimmy Prock. Austin Prock, the hard-charging 25-year-old racer who should be the face of drag racing’s future, is resigned for right now to his new role but told Competition Plus publisher Bobby Bennett this past weekend during testing, “It sucks not being able to race this year after sitting out last year, too, so to go another 12 months without getting that fix is going to hurt, but it will make me stronger, and I'll be back out there one day.” He said he’ll be “back on the money hustle.” Through the persuasive effort of legend Don Prudhomme, Prock brought multi-company owner Frank Tiegs to John Force Racing, but that sponsorship has transferred to Brittany Force’s dragster.
“Frank Tiegs owns those companies. We made a decision – he did – where we were going to go this year until we knew where the sport was going,” Force said. “So we decided to focus on one car instead of two of them, and that’s how that changed. But I want to grow that business back. They’re still with me. Montana Brand’s still on my other car. We’re going to build those brands back. I lost one car, but I’m going to find a way to bring that back – but I can’t guarantee that. I can’t put a timetable on that. I’d be lyin’ if I did that. I had a sponsorship for me. I couldn’t give it to another driver. If the Prock kid has to take a job, my heart’s with him. I’ll help him any way I can. I am going to keep him licensed. I’m going to keep him in the seat, because if anybody’s hurt, he’d go in a car right now. He can drive Top Fuel or Funny Car. My priority now is my three teams, to take care of majors that are paying for those teams, and all the sponsors.”
Austin Prock kept busy during the winter, working for bo-mar Industries, a fabrication/engineering company in Indianapolis, in the interim. Company owners Bob and Mark Buchanan are race fans with some of motorsports’ titans as their clients, and Prock (who wasn’t thrilled about working outside sometimes in the bitter-cold Indiana winter weather) said, “They gave me an opportunity to survive, so you’ve got to be thankful for that.”
As for Force, he has learned to diversify. He has made parts for Wayne Taylor Racing, which is headquartered across the street from John Force Racing’s (JFR’s) mammoth presence at Brownsburg, Ind. And he has struck a relationship with American Ultraviolet, a company based up Interstate 65 at Lebanon, Ind., that manufactures germicidal fixtures for the health-care. HVAC, and food and beverage industries. JFR produces some parts for the company’s machinery. In turn, American Ultraviolet has hired some of the JFR part-time workers also on a part-time basis. Force said he plans to market his machine, chassis, and paint shops’ capabilities to the IndyCar and NASCAR markets, too. “I’m rethinking John Force Racing,” he said, adding that he “might end up with [only] two cars one day.”
But the 16-time champion and 151-race winner hasn’t lost sight of his racing goals. He said, “I live it. I don’t want to retire. And I’m going to find a way to win. I got to change it, but I’m not going to give up winning or there’s no reason to go racin’. If you can’t have the dream, don’t do it. Don’t mean you’ve got to win, but you’ve got to have the dream. The one thing I told my sponsors is if I’m going to go back – I’ve made cuts everywhere to make it work – but if I have to cut the shot at winning, then I’m not going to go back.”
Force said, “I’m not going to retire. “I know that I will retire one day, but the sponsors want to keep me in the sport. And I want to stay in the sport and help the sport. I owe this sport. I don’t want to quit racin’, even if it’s not full time. I’ve already had offers to go back and drive for teams that I was with years ago, sponsors that I was with years ago, that go way back in my history, 40 years. That’s a lot of sponsors. I can go back and drive for them, even if it’s only part-time. I don’t want to get out of the seat. But – how long will I drive professionally? I don’t know, but that door is open to me now.
“My heart’s in it,” he said. “I’m going to stay in this thing, and when I can’t drive I’ll find other things to do, running this company.”
He said he was “embarrassed that I wasn’t out there” from July to November, “but I couldn’t make it financially.” His team missed the final nine races of the 2020 season.
“You look at what you offer sponsors in a contract and you owe (them) to take care of them. And even though they’re sayin’, ‘Let’s go racin’, everything’ll be OK,’ you have to look at if it don’t go the way we’re hoping it goes and you don’t do them races, you’re going to owe this money back,” Force said, explaining his decision to sit out.
“I didn’t take a stimulus. I told the sponsors, ‘We need to talk about it.’ But a lot of them couldn’t activate. The crowds weren’t there. We knew that we were already missing races. And I said, ‘Other people are racing, but I’m afraid to breach the contract,’” Force said. “We all looked at it, and financially it only made sense to move it to next year (2021). I made the call, with help from Robert, but I made the call.”
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— Competition Plus (@competitionplus) December 30, 2020