ASHLEY FORCE HOOD BACK ON TRACK AFTER THREE-PLUS YEARS
Ashley Force Hood was the first of multi-time Funny Car champion John Force’s daughters to become a professional race-car driver.
But Monday at The Strip at as Vegas Motor Speedway, she was the one playing catch-up, the one hoping she absorbs all the advice and knowledge and applies them properly.
Force Hood went through the National Hot Rod Association’s Funny Car licensing renewal procedures Monday at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
“I want to get re-licensed just so if there ever was a situation if someone broke their arm or got sick or something,” the four-time Funny Car winner said.
Ashley Force Hood was the first of multi-time Funny Car champion John Force’s daughters to become a professional race-car driver.
But Monday at The Strip at as Vegas Motor Speedway, she was the one playing catch-up, the one hoping she absorbs all the advice and knowledge and applies them properly.
Force Hood went through the National Hot Rod Association’s Funny Car licensing renewal procedures Monday at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
“I want to get re-licensed just so if there ever was a situation if someone broke their arm or got sick or something,” the four-time Funny Car winner said.
She stepped away from the sport after the 2010 season, when she learned she and husband Dan Hood, one of her crew chiefs, were expecting their first child. They are the parents of two boys, Jacob and Noah. Dan Hood serves with crew chief Ron Douglas for the Traxxas Ford Mustang that Ashley’s sister Courtney drives. Ashley Force Hood is the president of John Force Entertainment.
“My license expired a year or so ago, when I was pregnant with Noah. So I couldn’t do anything about it,” she said. “A few weeks ago, my husband said, ‘We’re going to be in Vegas, testing. If you want to update it, maybe now’s your chance to do that.’ We’re not in the Countdown and all that stuff.
Later testing opportunities likely wouldn’t have worked with her schedule, as she hadn’t planned to attend those national events. The Indianapolis test session falls on the eve of the season’s marquee race, when teams are focused on the six-event Countdown.
“So if there’s a race that would be nice and easy that I’m going to be at, it’d be here,” she said.
The choice to renew her license was not a haphazard, last-minute decision.
“I talked about it over the winter. Of course, Dad’s always bringing it up. But when there was an actual, specific day that came up – because Dan knows the testing schedule better than me – he’s like, ‘We’re going to be there. We’re going to be testing. Maybe this is an opportunity.’ I was going to be here anyway,” Force Hood said. “We checked with Ron [Douglas] and Courtney to make sure that was OK with everybody. And everyone’s like, ‘Sure!’ “
She said she had no delusions that operating the car again would be a cinch, although everybody had been telling her driving the Funny Car again will be like riding her bike.
“But I’m like, ‘No, it won’t.’ I think it’ll come back to me. It’ll take a few runs, even simple things like which side of the car you got in and basic little things that you don’t stop and think about,” she said before strapping in the car Monday.
She recalled that even active drivers are a bit apprehensive to start a season. “Everyone’s a little nervous to jump back in after being off for three months, because they’re such powerful cars,” she said. And she was talking about being out of the car for about three months, not three and a half years.
Force Hood said she prepared herself by sitting in one of the cars at the shop and becoming familiar again with the landscape of the cockpit. She said she knew a few changes had taken place in the warm-up process, for example. “There’s really no big things,” but she did as much homework as she could.
She also watched the Traxxas Mustang team’s routine during the weekend’s SummitRacing.com Nationals. They have developed a uniquely specific set of practices, and Force Hood said she wanted not to take her sister’s team out of its rhythm.
“We want to do exactly what their routine is. They just need to tell me what it is and I’ll adapt to it,” she said during the past weekend.
One comforting thought for her was that a couple of the crew members were on her team when she drove this particular Mustang. “It’s kind of nice to have familiar faces, and I know Courtney’s team anyway,” Force Hood said.
While Courtney Force said she’d like to try out sister Brittany’s Top Fuel dragster sometime, Force Hood declared herself “really hesitant about the dragster.” She said, “I really don’t know why. I’ve always had a fear of them, which doesn’t make sense. Funny Cars can be just as crazy as dragsters.”
She raced a Top Alcohol Dragster and won five of nine final rounds and compiled a 67-33 elimination-round record. So it’s not like she can’t handle a “long, skinny car.”
However, she said, “The front coming up stopped my heart every time. That’s how it had to be to take off, but with the Funny Car you don’t see that. So every time in A/Fuel I was [anxious], just getting through that spot until it sat back down. So I think that would come back. I feel more comfortable in a Funny Car. I like the body over me. I like the shorter wheelbase.
“It’s all just your experiences with racing. We all have our own little reasons. I’m terrified of sharks. Then there are people who by choice swim with sharks. I think they’re nuts. And then there’s people who look at race-car drivers and they think we’re nuts,” Force Hood said. “So it’s all a matter of what your background is, I guess.”
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