FORCE TO BE RECKONED WITH: BRITTANY, JOHN FORCE TOP PALM BEACH TESTING

Mon, 2021-03-08 10:37

At the end of three days of extended testing at the Pro Winter Warm-up test session in Palm Beach, Fla., the leaders of the pack in the fuel categories weren't those teams who challenged for an NHRA series championship in 2020. Instead, those who took top billing were two drivers who hadn't been behind the wheel in 54 weeks.

The daughter and father team of Brittany Force and John Force fought their way to the top of the Top Fuel and Funny Car leaderboards, respectively.

Brittany went to the top on the final day of testing in her first run down the drag strip, carding a 3.679, 331.04.

“It’s been a year since we’ve been out here and it feels awesome to be back in the car, back with my Monster Energy / Flav-R-Pac team, back with the fans and all of John Force Racing as a whole," Brittany said. "Our team rolled right back into things in our first pass,” said Force. “We made nine passes in total and I feel like we’re pretty close to where we left off over a year ago. Grubnic is happy, Savage is happy, I feel good in the car and the whole team is pumped to go to Gainesville. I’m ready to get there and we’ll be coming out swinging right out of the gate looking for our first win at the first race of the season.”

Other Top Fuel top runners included Mike Salinas (3.693, 328.30), Leah Pruett (3.695, 317.64), Doug Kalitta (3.732, 318.77) and Steve Torrence (3.708, 292.58).

Drag Racing most decorated fuel racer John Force showed his championship mettle on Sunday when he thundered by teammate Robert Hight for the top honors in testing with a 3.860, 329.02 pass.

“Testing has been good. Our teams, the new guys, the crew chiefs, all the drivers, things went well," John said. "You know we were gone a year but it sure don’t look like it,” said Force. “It feels good to be back in my car, back in the seat. BlueDEF PLATINUM looks good on the side and it’s comfortable, it’s home."

Hight was second quickest with a 3.866, 332.18, and was followed by Matt Hagan (3.880, 329.99), Ron Capps (3.891, 324.83), and Alexis DeJoria (3.919, 316.15).

The PRO Winter Warm-up was originally scheduled to run through Monday, but with cooler temperatures and higher than usual wind speeds forecast decided to end the session and head for Gainesville, Fla.

 

 

 

 
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