UPDATED: JOHN FORCE ANNOUNCEMENT
Mon, 2007-04-09 13:55
NHRA has just
announced a national teleconference for tomorrow, Tuesday, April 10th featuring 14-time champ John Force,
during which the sport’s most popular competitor will discuss his team’s plan
for this coming weekend’s Summitracing.com Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas
Motor Speedway. Rumors continue to swirl
regarding what might be announced tomorrow, including one story reportedly
emanating from someone alleged to have inside information about JFR that
suggests Force will have daughters Courtney and Brittany sit out Super Comp
racing in Las Vegas. Remember, Brittany had an
“incident” during pre-season testing at The Strip, and that could be playing a
role in this decision, if it’s true. Repeated calls to JFR personnel
for confirmation or denial have not been returned. We will have a complete report by no later than 3:00
PM Eastern time tomorrow. Stay tuned.
UPDATED: Here are a few things we’re hearing from very credible
sources. First, as
late as this past weekend Ashely Force was
planning on being in Las Vegas
competing in Funny Car, but that could
possibly change. Her sisters,
Brittany and Courtney, were also planning on competing in Super Comp, but
reliable sources have
confirmed that the two mechanics who “ran” that
portion of JFR are
gone, but we don’t yet know under what circumstances
they left the
team. A friend of Force’s is reportedly on tap to drive the
Super Comp rig to The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Murf McKinney
has
reportedly made some major changes to Force’s Funny Cars, with one of
those changes said to be a widening of the roll cages by about 4-
inches
near the top, but this has not been confirmed. Austin Coil will reportedly
be a part of the teleconference specifically to
outline the changes that
have been made to the cars. Other sources
report that Force is slated to
make a run on Thursday at Las Vegas in order to check out the changes to
the car, and if true that would be
an unprecedented situation, as to our
recollection NHRA has never
allowed a professional competitor an additional
run outside of the
four regular qualifying sessions. Two prominent PRO
members have told Torco’s Competitionplus.com about the plans for the
Thursday
run, but that’s yet another situation we can’t yet confirm from
JFR.
We’ll have a complete report on the teleconference within minutes of
its conclusion this afternoon, which should be about 3 PM Eastern time
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