The day started early, as I encountered various road conditions on Interstate 10, hitting rain first and then over a foot of snow. But after that it was clear sailing the rest of the way. I pulled into the Firebird International Raceway mid day Thursday. The race cars would begin running on Friday, but the car count was very low as some of the NHRA racers had chosen races in warmer climates during the previous weeks. Six AA/FC made the track from Brownsburg to Chandler those being three John Force racing Mustangs, Tim Wilkerson from Springfield Ill and his team mate Bob Tasca Jr., both with Ford Shelby Mustang bodies, along with two time NHRA Funny Car Champion Cruz Pedregon. Cruz was debuting his Toyota Solaria as part of the Snap On Tools livery in Top Fuel. Bill Miller had young Troy Buff behind the wheel of his black and yellow Don Long built dragster out of Reno. Brandon Bernstein was in Blue after he and his Dad had been with Budweiser Beer Red for over 20 plus years . They debuted their new CoPart & Lucas Oil top fuel dragster . Dote Racing showed up, a brand new team with all new equipment. They were going to have Jessie Harris drive the dragster but after a conflict among crew, family and Harris, Doug Foley was chosen to drive the t/f dragster and Harris went searching for a new ride to bring her financing to another race team.
For the 2010 NHRA Full Throttle season, Force has parked his Mike Neff driven AA/FC due to lack of a sponsor. Force ran this car out of his own pocket for part of last year. The bottom line was that until they could justify the cost or find the backing to run the fourth car Neff would go back to being a crew chief on John’s funny car along with long time and 17 time NHRA Champion tuner Austin Coil. Force racing also will be celebrating his twenty fifth year with Castrol motor oil as his major sponsor, so he debuted a new look for his car along with new looks for his daughter, Ashley Force Hood. Ashley placed 2nd in points last year, and was also looking good in her new paint and new fire suit. 2009 NHRA Full Throttle Funny Car Champion Robert Hight, who also is John Force’s son in law (married to Force’s oldest Daughter) also has a new look for 2010.
John has a new weapon on his team, clutch and race track horse whisperer Lanny M. who was let go after 6 championships in Top Fuel by Don Schumacher over the winter. Testing is about numbers…how quick to 60 foot 330 ft. 660 and 1000 foot. In top fuel action Brandon Bernstein , with Rob Flynn tuning, ran low 3.80 e.t. at 314 mph. Team Force had the best numbers running 4.06 and 4.05 e.t. by Robert Hight & Ashley Force Hood. All the teams would be happy with the results and go back to their respective race shops until the 50th NHRA Winternationals.
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