Originally published April 2009
John Force Remembers the First Season “On the Tour”
Force probably signs more autographs in a weekend now than he did the entire 1979 season.
John Force looks at the rope line in his pit area to get the full effect of how his life has changed dramatically in the last three decades.
He looks a bit wearied, stressed for making sure every single detail of his drag racing empire is covered, including those that cheer him on each day of his life.
“I have to take care of the fans,” Force said, as he walks with a slight limp towards the mass of fans standing four rows deep, arms outstretched seeking the important John Force autograph.
Some days the fans get the full autograph. The one with most of the letters in his name legible and others when he’s overwhelmed many get the trademark “JF”. Today was a “JF” day.
These days the “JF” moments outweigh the full signature days.
Some fans will hang out at the back of the hauler for as long as an hour hoping to get a glimpse or a handshake from the 14-time champion. One by one they walk away, leaving the impression that they’d reconnected with a long lost friend.
The fast-talking Force has that kind of effect on people.
He pauses on the way to the roped off corner to remind this writer that there was once a day when he would have paid someone to ask for his autograph. There was one problem with that idea. He didn’t have any money and his fans were few and far between.
In those days, leakers, drivers who leaked oil on the race track, didn’t draw much fanfare.
CHASING UNCORPORATE AMERICA – The pilot episode to CompetitionPlus.com’s Legends: The Series.
Force didn’t care. It was thirty years ago that the fast-talking, made the seat-of-the-pants decision to chase an NHRA Winston World
Force scored his first top ten points finish on the strength of two final round finishes. He’s currently at 24 consecutive top tens.
Championship title.
The decision proved to be one of the worst and the best he’d ever made to that point of 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.
He’s since established a run of twenty-four consecutive top ten finishes.
That first season was especially special.
In addition to his many “firsts” of that season, it was the first time a fan walked into his pit area and asked for an autograph.
“They didn’t know any better,” Force added.
He now averages more autograph seekers in one weekend on the 2009 NHRA Full Throttle tour than he did the entire 1979 tour.
“Most of them were trying to drag me through the ropes [back then], now I’m trying to get away from them to do other things like an interview with you,” Force said after signing nearly 200 autographs in one 30 minute session at the edge of his pit area.
“That’s good, that’s what the fans are all about. They’re everything to me now,” Force continued. “There are just so many and I try to take care of them the best I can.”
Fans mean good paying sponsors and back in those days, Force had more sponsors than fans flocking to his Wendy’s Hot & Juicy Hamburgers-sponsored Corvette — a deal he admits was based on free food over cash.
“I really never thought drag racing would be what it is today back in 1979, what I can remember of 1979,” Force said.
The thing about Force is that he has selective memory depending on the company he’s keeping at the time. There are those incidents he CAN’T talk about.
The ones he can talk about will suffice. There was the time during the 1979 season where he dressed up like the Wendy’s girl as a replacement for the no-show teenage girl. Force laments only that he didn’t have enough time to shave his legs. There are only so many things a driver can do when pulling off a sponsor event the morning of race day.
The Force pit compound back in 1979 greatly differs from the modern version.
Then there were the travels to the events which were as entertaining as the event itself. He reels off a story about the time a faulty exhaust system in their tow truck melted his wife’s shoes to the floorboard. Force’s older brother Louie eventually rectified the situation with sheet metal from Bank of America sign he obtained from a local night watchman. The leftovers of the sign eventually ended up as spoiler on Force’s car leading one local newspaper at an event to proclaim Force had signed new sponsorship from Bank of America.
Force begged, borrowed and did everything short of stealing to keep racing that season. Often time he would win money that was already earmarked to pay a debt which was accrued just to get him to the event.
That was the Force way in 1979. Even Force shakes his head when he discusses his methods of doing business back then.
He was know for borrowing money from within the pits leaving the creditor wondering if they’d get their money back.
“I had hocked everything, and even borrowed money from someone well known in the pits, I’m not going to say their name because it might cause a lot of trouble,” Force explained. “I borrowed a great deal of money and I guess he thought I wasn’t going to pay – he thought I was going to cheat him. So he sent a guy named the ‘Quarter Bender’ to get me.
“He was a great guy but what I didn’t realize is that this guy was an ex-C.I.A. or something,” Force added. “When they said he could bend quarters, he could bend quarters. Ole John Force was going to fight this guy.”
Force was given his warnings that the “Quarter Bender” was going to stuff him in a trash can in much the same fashion that he’d reportedly put another man of larger stature.
That’s when Force’s uncle Gene intervened to protect his nephew from doing something stupid like trying to fight.
“He got a guy named George Stregal and his son actually sold engines to the Quarter Benders dad,” Force said, pausing while telling the story long enough to laugh. “… to call and talk to the Quarter Bender’s dad and plead with him not to kill Force.
“He did his best pleading, saying that Force was an up and comer and one day he’d be the champion and that the Quarter Bender was going to kill Force and Force is too stupid to know it. I ended up settling the debt … I was a little late and the Quarter Bender didn’t have to kill me.”
As lethal as his borrowing tactics could have been, his crew chief by committee approach could have been just as bad. According to sources Force often included the fans at the edge of the pit area in the tuning decisions at times. When he had money, the rotation often included Bill Schultz and note chassis builder Steve Plueger, who helped as a favor to Force’s Uncle Gene Beaver and the Condit Brothers.
Force’s team was quite the sight, too.
“We didn’t even have uniforms,” Force said, as his voice continued to break with laughter. “We had Wendy’s store t-shirts. No one in those days knew what a square hamburger was. It was something new.”
Force was the perfect squared hamburger representation.
Force sold himself larger than reality and when the reps from Wendy’s did attend a race, they left scratching their heads and wondering what had happened to the large operation they had envisioned.
Force won his first round of his career by defeating Tom “Mongoose” McEwen and that same weekend reached his first career final during the NHRA Cajun Nationals in Baton Rouge, La.
No one was more shocked than Force, who had visions of grandeur even when grossly outmatched, but when he reached the finals at the Cajuns, he believed his ship had come in. Unfortunately, Force would learn that another champion-to-be had a better chance of scoring that victory.
Enter Kenny Bernstein and the Chelsea King Plymouth Arrow, who lined up against Force in the final round.
“I’ll never forget that it was my big chance at a win and of course, the fans didn’t know who I was,” Force admitted. “I did have a few fans and they’d bring me sandwiches and birthday cakes just so the team could eat.”
Force caught himself in a daydream as the prepared to do battle. A few seconds later he was awakened to reality as the Wendy’s car broke.
“There I was, I had done my burnout, and I felt like I was going to spank Bernstein,” Force said. “He was a pretty big name that season and before. And the transmission broke … it really didn’t matter because I would have probably lost anyway.”
Force went on to finish runner-up again at the NHRA Summernationals in Englishtown, N.J., losing to the legendary Raymond Beadle in the final round, another champion en route to a championship winning career.
No one knew, including Force.
There was something charismatic about this driver who caught everyone’s attention and never was this better evidenced than in an interview with Diamond P announcer Steve Evans following a second round race in which Force won but should have lost due to driver error.
This was the exchange.
EVANS: John Force … that is one that you might have lost had you not stuck with it.
FORCE (as he slams down driving jacket): Steve, I made one of those all time screw ups. I left the starting line in high gear … I can’t believe I did it. My car was weird acting … I just did everything wrong. I pedaled it. I seen he was in trouble. I recovered and reached down to shift in high gear and I was already in high gear. I gotta apologize to my guys because they worked hard. I just screwed up and the Lord allowed us to pull that one out of the bag.
EVANS: You got a reprieve as you go to the semi-finals. You’ll never do that again, probably.
FORCE: I’ll make a lot of mistakes before this is over. That’s a killer … to be that dumb. It’s dumb … the pressure … when I got in the glue box the car was sideways coming out and I had to pedal it. So I thought I’d leave it in high and do another dry [hop] with it to save some wear on the clutch. When I backed up my whole program changed and I never thought to put it back in low. My whole program changed. It’s one of those dumb things.
EVANS: Seems to me that it takes a special guy to admit it.
Force breaks out of his sullen mood long enough to flash a wide smile.
FORCE: I’m a heck of a guy.
That was the same smile he flashed as he resumed signing autographs, taking care of the most important people in his career.
SEE A 1979 INTERVIEW WITH FORCE
