John Force was expecting the reporter’s call. What he didn’t anticipate was the opening question. 

“John, what are your feelings headed into your 800th race?”

Force responded with a question, “My 800th race? Really, it’s my 800th?”

Time goes by when you’re having fun, so it appears. 

Force shakes his head and smiles at the stuff that seems to get by him these days. 

“I’m standing in the parking lot the other day, pissing and moaning about something,” Force said as he reminisced. “A guy went by, and he said, “I heard you just had a grandchild. And he goes, ‘How many grandkids you got?” I said, “Well, I got Autumn, Jacob, Noah, Harlan, and Tinley.” 

“I knew I had five grandkids; it just didn’t register what it meant. I went home, and I thought, ‘God, I’ve got five grandkids.”

“Then I thought about it. I love my grandkids to death, but I never even thought about it. And all of a sudden, it was like, wow, I was all excited. I told my wife, ‘We’ve got five grandkids.” 

“She goes, ‘You just realized that?” And I said, “No, it’s awesome.” 

One builds a lot of memories in 800 races when the career spans five decades. Force started racing in the early 1970s, but it wasn’t until 1977 that he mustered the courage to enter an NHRA Winston Drag Racing Series national event.

Force entered the 1977 NHRA Winternationals in Pomona, Ca.

In the weeks ahead of the event, Force made his way out to his local track in Orange County, Ca., and on the first run, encountered mayhem as the car erupted into massive flames. Up until this point, Force’s attempts at drag racing had been anything but easy. He’d crashed a Fuel Altered on the backroads of Bellflower, Ca., in an attempt to impress his then-girlfriend Laurie. Then had to recover a race trailer stolen from him only to run over the mayor of the small town where he had to go to steal it back. Then there was the well-publicized trip to Australia, where he went Down Under at the urging of his Uncle Gene Beaver with zero knowledge of how to run a Funny Car. To hear the accounts of Gary Densham and Force himself, it’s a wonder he made it out alive. 

“My wife had bought me a St. Christopher’s to go to Australia, to protect you in flight,” Force recalled. “And then I burnt it down at Orange County, to the ground. It was smoldering. And I remember Beaver said, ‘The only thing left you’ve got to sell is the story because there ain’t no effing race car.” 

“And I turned it into a story, and that’s when people started writing about me, right there at Orange County.”

Sure enough, Force was the talk of Orange County that day as veteran photographer John Shanks captured the moment on film, and it ended up in Hot Rod magazine. 

Force somehow fixed the Monza and made it to Pomona, only to face another issue. A new NHRA rule enacted in 1977 required all Funny Cars to have an escape hatch. His Monza didn’t have one, but that appeared to be an easy fix for the headstrong Force. 

“I just cut a hole in the roof and put the roof hatch on with a couple of bolts because I couldn’t afford to go to a chassis shop,” Force admitted. And I went down to the racetrack at Pomona, and I have the picture. The whole roof caved in. It took all the strength out of it. So much for me being a chassis builder.”

So much for Force making the field, too. 

Force did return in 1978 and qualified for his first national event at the season-ending 1978 NHRA World Finals at the now-defunct Ontario Motor Speedway in Ontario, Ca. 

Force committed to racing the entire NHRA season in 1979. The decision proved one of the worst and the best he’d ever made to that point in his career. It was a bad decision because he barely had the resources to run half of the schedule. The best was his first career top ten points finish.

It wouldn’t be until 1983 when he finished in the top ten again, ascending as high as fourth. 

“I raced for the first 10 – 12 years, and I drove the rig from race to race,” Force explained. 

Force carried two common nicknames in those days. Most knew him as Brute Force, while others chose another one he says was more appropriate… the leaker. 

Bill Doner, the premiere drag racing promoter of those days, suggested once that Force turn his car upside down and use it as a boat. NHRA even employed Force as transportation for their National DRAGSTER newspapers and bags of grease sweep, mainly used following his runs. 

Force hired Austin Coil in 1985 as his crew chief, and the first change he made was in demanding his driver could no longer drive the rig from race to race.

“In the early days, I didn’t go home for three months,” Force admitted. “You’d come out here and stay. You couldn’t afford to fly back and forth, and you were the only truck driver you had. When Coil came in, he said, ‘I’m not going to work for you. They told me you drove the truck and lived on the road. And I didn’t believe it. No owner drives his own truck.” 

“And he said, ‘You get to the races; that’s why you can’t drive. You’re so effing tired. You’re so effed up you don’t know it.”

Coil, out of his meager paycheck from Force, who ran Coca-Cola on his Funny Car without receiving a dime of sponsorship from them, began purchasing his employer’s plane tickets.

“He just said, ‘We ain’t doing this no more,” Force recalled. “And then I ended up paying for them. But he actually bought me tickets, because he gave a crap, and he wanted us to do good.”

For Force, those early days were of survival, and that often meant bypassing interstate scales from the east to west coasts and whatever he could do to make ends meet. 

“That’s how I lived, it just evolved over time,” Force said.

From 1985 until the present, Force finished in the top ten every year except for 2020, when he pulled his teams off the tour during the pandemic. 

Force has been called the G.O.A.T., a term he didn’t fully understand meant “greatest of all time” until about 750 races into his career. For a long time, he believed those who used the reference were calling him a goat, as in an old goat. 

“GOAT is a terrible name to call somebody; you know what I mean?” Force said, bordering on a rant. “I get calls like, ‘Hey, I heard somebody call you the GOAT on TV. Don’t that tick you off?” Because some people don’t know what GOAT means. I didn’t. I just figured it out a few months ago.”

“I learned about the GOAT from why they called Tom Brady the GOAT. Just G-O-A-T, it just didn’t ring a bell, didn’t care, never thought about it. Never heard it. And every now and then, they’d call somebody a GOAT. And I thought… and so finally I had to ask, “What the eff’s it stand for?”  Couldn’t they come up with another name instead of GOAT?”

While Force is coming to terms with the goat terminology, he let it slip that next March; he will have to learn how to come to grips with another term, Hall of Famer. Force revealed he got the call from Don Garlits recently confirming he will be in the Class of 2023 inductees for the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame. 

“I really am proud of that,” Force stopped, bearing his classic smile. 

Force had earlier opportunities to get inducted but deferred to others he said deserved it more than him. Or, as some have said, the selectors figured he would never retire or pass away, so they’d might as well go ahead and put him in. 

But, as Force sees it, the key to his 800 races was never about trying to earn a place in the Hall of Fame. The drag strip has been his happy place, even when there wasn’t much to be happy about.

“I got in the car with Danny and Fabrisi this morning. And they’re like, ‘Can we get you coffee?” Force recalled. “I’m taking fruit, Balance of Nature, and I’m taking all this stuff to make me healthy. And zinc and magnesium to keep COVID away.”

Then they pulled into the track, and a different Force reemerged. 

“Well, when you come here, it’s like you’re home,” Force said. “Ask Fabrisi. And he’ll tell you, “That Force was all depressed. And the minute we pulled in the gate, all of a sudden, his voice changed. He started laughing about everything.”

“That’s because I am at home.”

Force believes if all the time were added up for his time at the strip, it would easily outnumber his days at home.  

Physically, Force knows Father Time is catching up rapidly, but he’s still in the gym every day to keep age at bay. 

“I ran into Al Unser, Jr., and I was coming out of the gym, trying to get to my car,” Force recalled. He laughed, and asked me, ‘You okay?” 

“He was coming out of a place next door and goes, ‘What are you doing in there?” 

“I said, ‘What do you think I’m doing? I’m working out.” 

“He goes, ‘At your age?” 

“I laughed and said, ‘I’m trying to stay in that race car.” 

And even when he can’t stay in the race car, Force is prepared. He was determined to get his 800th race in the books, even if the unfortunate occurred. 

“I’ll go out here and tell them, ‘If I fall over dead, put me in the car and shove me up there,” Force said. “I’m going to tell them that right now. If anything goes, and my old pump quits, put me in that effing car and shove me to the starting line, and fire it up and turn on the stage light.” 

And the most entertaining part of it all, with 15 Funny Cars at the Pep Boys NHRA Nationals, Force would qualify.

Force didn’t need to kick the bucket as his 3.890, 329.99 performance was enough to put him second in the field on Friday.