John Force’s crew might be lobbying for hazard pay. Or the next time the 16-time NHRA Funny Car champion decides he wants to ride in the rig from race to race, they might pool their paychecks and buy the boss a plane ticket.
Daughter Brittany already had a ticket to fly into Bristol’s Tri-Cities airport, and when Force did his searching for a ticket, the only option available was a $1,500 first-class seat.
“I wasn’t going to pay that,” Force said. “I won’t fly first class unless it’s a free upgrade.”
Force, a former truck driver, decided to be one of the boys and climb into the truck he purchased but rarely ever rode in. He was going to road trip with the boys down to the NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals in Bristol, Tenn.
“I got in the 18-wheeler with the guys and we took off,” Force said, grinning ear to ear. “We had a ball. I got to drive a little bit, not much. But it was fun being out there. But what it does it gets my mind right. When you’re mad at yourself for the way you ran the last race, and then all the change of everything happening, I just changed mentally, but the truck got me back to why I came.
Once the team arrived at the track, even more so than usual, Force was being Force.
“I love coming into this facility. I came in, in my 18-wheeler; this is the truth. We went down the other end, we had to dump the sewers, and we had to water the tanks. And I’m with two of my guys.”
Then it hit Force, “I didn’t get a rental car because I rode down with them,” Force said. “Now Brittany’s stuck with driving me around. She hates it. Okay, it’s painful. But when I was done, we were done, and we got our parking, and they’d go, ‘Force, how are you getting back [to the hotel]?’
“I said, ‘I never thought about it. How are you guys getting back?”
“And we’re stranded. So we called our guys, and they were two hours out.”
Of all knights in shining armor, NHRA’s VP of Competition Ned Walliser came to Force’s rescue by accident.
“He had his motorcoach out here with his wife and goes, ‘What are you doing out here in the middle of the night?’
“I said, ‘I’ll buy you guys dinner if you’ll get us home to our hotel.”
Force got his ride and fed them in return. That might have been the second-best road trip save he’s made in his career.
There was the one time Force drove the team’s truck back in the day, long before he was famous, and took a wrong turn in Texas, ending up in Mexico, and needed to write a check from a closed bank account to gain his freedom from a band of banditos.
The smooth-talking Force had talked the banditos into thinking he was their long-lost friend, and the way interacts with race fans leaves them with the same feeling.
“As long as they’re cheering, I’ll be here,” Force proclaimed. “When they quit liking me, time for me to go home. Could be getting close.”
