Having already defied conventional wisdom simply by climbing back into the cockpit of his 330 mile-an-hour Castrol GTX® High Mileage™ Ford Mustang, John Force tries to take his remarkable comeback one step further this weekend on a Firebird Raceway quarter mile on which he has gone to the final round 10 times in the last 14 seasons, more often than at any other track in the NHRA POWERade Series.
 
Although he still walks with a limp, the result of injuries suffered Sept. 23rd in a spectacular and widely-documented crash in Dallas, Texas, Force isn't merely a sentimental favorite in this week's 24th annual Checker/Schuck's/Kragen Nationals.  He's the real thing: a threat to extend to 22 the number of consecutive seasons in which he has won at least one NHRA tour event.
 
A semifinalist two weeks ago in the season-opening race at Pomona, Calif., one in which he posted the quickest race day time of 4.805 seconds, Force returns this week to the track where he first mashed the gas on his reconfigured Funny Car during last month's pre-season test.

Having already defied conventional wisdom simply by climbing back into the cockpit of his 330 mile-an-hour Castrol GTX® High Mileage™ Ford Mustang, John Force tries to take his remarkable comeback one step further this weekend on a Firebird Raceway quarter mile on which he has gone to the final round 10 times in the last 14 seasons, more often than at any other track in the NHRA POWERade Series.
 
Although he still walks with a limp, the result of injuries suffered Sept. 23rd in a spectacular and widely-documented crash in Dallas, Texas, Force isn't merely a sentimental favorite in this week's 24th annual Checker/Schuck's/Kragen Nationals.  He's the real thing: a threat to extend to 22 the number of consecutive seasons in which he has won at least one NHRA tour event.
 
A semifinalist two weeks ago in the season-opening race at Pomona, Calif., one in which he posted the quickest race day time of 4.805 seconds, Force returns this week to the track where he first mashed the gas on his reconfigured Funny Car during last month's pre-season test.
 
"I can't run; can barely walk," acknowledged the 58-year-old racing icon, "but that's what the race car is for.  It does the running for me."

"They put a push brake in the car, which I really don't like.  Mike Neff loves it.  My daughter Ashley and Robert (Hight) are learning it, but I'm old school.  I didn't think I'd have the strength in my fingers to pull the brake handle, but I knew I could shove it with my palm.  But I still don't like it.  I may still change it back. - John Force

 
Although rival Ron Capps and teammate and points leader Robert Hight both have called him Superman, Force plays down the superhuman aspect of his recovery from serious injuries including a compound fracture of the left ankle, severely dislocated left wrist, broken fingers on both hands, broken and mangled toes on both feet and tendon and ligament damage resulting from a deep laceration to the right knee.
                                                                                                                                                  
"Racing is what I know," Force said, "so I committed myself to doing what the doctors told me.  I had great doctors who understood racing, who understood what needed to be done to get me back in a race car.  I did the therapy, every day for four months.  I'm still going."

After spending 27 days at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, Force continued his physical therapy in California.  Although he didn't drive in the season's final three races, resulting in a seventh place finish in driver points, his poorest since 1984, Force did attend the season's last two events.
 
He said that being with his team at Las Vegas, Nev., and Pomona, Calif., re-energized him and made him more determined to be back in the car to start the new season.
 
"Best therapy I had was being at the races and then getting in the car (at Firebird) for testing," he said.  "It was very emotional, especially after all we've been through (with his crash and an earlier testing accident that claimed the life of rising star and teammate Eric Medlen)."
 
Beginning his 31st season on the NHRA POWERade tour, his 22nd with Castrol as his primary sponsor, drag racing's most prolific winner finds himself behind the wheel of a redesigned Mustang that doesn't look like anything he has driven before -- primarily because it represents the first major re-design of the basic Funny Car in more than 20 years.  The most obvious differences are three frame rails along each side instead of just two, more braces and cross members, bigger, thicker tubing and more padding.
      
Less apparent are changes to the parachute releases, the brakes, the steering, the fuel shutoff levers, all dictated by data developed after his crash and the earlier Florida accident involving Medlen.  In short, everything that Force once managed without even thinking has been reconfigured.
 
"They put a push brake in the car," he said,  "which I really don't like.  Mike Neff (the newest member of the Force driving team) loves it.  My daughter Ashley and Robert (Hight) are learning it, but I'm old school.  I didn't think I'd have the strength in my fingers to pull the brake handle, but I knew I could shove it with my palm.  But I still don't like it.  I may still change it back."
 
For Force, the biggest problem has been adjusting to the new location and operation of the parachute release.  He missed the lever on two test runs at Firebird and almost ran out of road before stopping.  Then, at Pomona, trying to dodge the shrapnel thrown into his lane by the exploding car of reigning series champion Tony Pedregon, he was late deploying the  chutes and went into the sand pit.
 
"(None of the incidents) had anything to do with my injuries," Force said, "but had everything to do with moving all the levers and switches.  You do something one way for 30 years, it takes a while to get out of the habit."
 
Despite his sevent place finish last season, the 14-time Auto Racing All-America selection did manage to win three tour events which extended another obscure -- but very impressive   streak.  Force has won at least three races every year since 1989 and he'd like to get an early start on extending it to 19 straight