The most successful drag racer in history recalls his all-time greatest moment.
On September 23, 2007, John Force sat on the starting line at Texas Motorplex, a drag strip in a small town south of Dallas. It was just months after the death of his team’s driver, Eric Medlen, who sustained severe injuries when his tire failed during an NHRA test session in Florida. Medlen died four days later.
The Christmas tree—a stack of starting lights telling NHRA drivers when to go—went from amber to green. Force fired off the line, finishing the race seconds later at 315 mph.
As his parachutes deployed, his tire failed. Force’s car yanked to the right, slamming into competitor Kenny Bernstein and then the wall.
“I had the same crash [as Medlen],” Force told Road & Track. “It was a problem with the chassis, and it hospitalized me for months. They said: ‘You’ll never walk again, let alone drive.’ But I swore I would.”
Force didn’t just drive again—he drove straight to NHRA history.
Welcome to Split Second, where we ask racers to recall a split-second moment that’s seared into their brain—the perfect pass, the slow-motion movie of their own worst crash, the near-miss that scared them straight, or anything else—and what gives the memory staying power. In this edition, we spoke to NHRA Funny Car driver John Force, who described his 150th win.
Force, who has a record 16 championships in NHRA’s Funny Car division, won his first race in 1987. He still competes at 72 years old, and he told R&T the 2007 crash was “a wakeup call in looking at life.” Force still couldn’t walk very well when he returned to competition in 2008, but he could pilot a 300-mph race car and win.
“From that crash, I came back and I won some races,” Force said. “Then, I won a championship. I remember running down the racetrack [after one win]—I couldn’t run, I was hobbling along—and I tried to climb the fence. It was like: ‘I can’t climb. I don’t have the strength, but I’m driving this 330-mph car.’ That stuck in my mind.”
As the years went on, Force’s victory record clicked upward. He’d long surpassed the other top drivers on the all-time wins list, the closest of whom hovered around the 100 mark. When Force arrived at Seattle’s NHRA Northwest Nationals in 2019, he had 149.
“It was just a typical day in Seattle,” Force said. “It was beautiful. Track was good—a little bit warm—and I went the first, second, and third rounds with a win.”
That’s when everyone started talking about 150.
“I don’t do that,” Force said. “If you focus on that, you don’t focus on driving. I’ve seen drivers rehearse what they’re going to say, then they go up there and they’re late on the lights.
“You’ve got to go into the zone where you don’t see the crowds, you don’t hear the cheers. In that moment, on the starting line, you’ve got to react to the tree. When you see amber before the green light, your foot has to leap. You don’t want to think: ‘Is it gonna spin the tires? Is it gonna wheelstand?’ If you think that, you might lift your foot.”
Force lined up against fellow Funny Car driver Ron Capps for the final in Seattle that weekend. Capps was in his mid-50s at the time—about 15 years younger than Force—and Force remembered thinking: “Capps is really good on the light, and I’m not.” But he couldn’t dwell on it.
“Win or lose, you’re not thinking about that driver over there, because there’s nothing you can do about them,” Force said. “You don’t even want to look over, because you might drive that way. You follow the end of the lights, then your mind is: parachutes, shut the engine off, shut the fuel off.
“You go into fight mode, because if hell breaks loose, you’ve got to be prepared to negotiate what’s next. If the car gets in trouble, as safe as they are, it can hurt you.”
Force thundered off the starting line and into a blue-and-white blur at 321 mph. Less than four seconds later, he hit the magic 150—but he didn’t even know until he saw his family celebrating.
“There’s a light on the pole, and it tells you which lane won,” Force said. “But I can never seem to find it, because I don’t look for it. There have been times when I thought I won, then I find out that the other person maybe put their chutes out a little early and actually beat me.
“But when I went around the corner, people were all over me. TV cameras. It took me a moment to find myself. I came out of the roof hatch, and once I hit the ground, I was off and running and yelling.”
As he celebrated on the television broadcast, Force alternated between cursing and apologizing for cursing. Those around him had the same energy.
“Ron Capps was just as excited as me,” Force said. “He came running over to me, and I yelled: ‘Here’s the future of the sport.’ I was crying, I was cussing, and I grabbed him and I kissed him. I don’t know where it came from.
“He was in shock, and so was everybody else—TV and everybody—and I said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.’ I just loved him for that moment.”
Force then headed back to the start line to watch his team’s new driver, Austin Prock, win his first-ever Top Fuel final. It only added to the mood.
“Here I won 150, and he won his first,” Force said. “I remember running across the racetrack, and I said, ‘I’m gonna get in the stands.’ I climbed the fence, and they had to pull me over. It wasn’t pretty. It looked pathetic, but they got me up into the stands and they wouldn’t let me go.”
The stands were “a blur” for Force. Fans cheered, tugging on him to come sit with them as he cried with joy. His decade-old injuries had prevented him from climbing the fence once, but they didn’t this time.
“Back then, my legs were too bad and my body was too tired,” Force said. “But I made it this time, and it was just a magic moment. You come back from the dead, so to speak, and then you win. They never thought I’d ever get there.
“The race was over, but nobody would leave the stands. Half of those people I met when they were little kids. That was just a moment to give back to them, because they never quit cheering: ‘We don’t care how bad you are, we love you. You don’t have to win ever again, and we’ll support you.’”
Force walks better these days, though crash rehabilitation is still a major part of his life. People tell him no one will ever match his win count, which now sits at 154, but he knows someone will eventually. He also knows he’ll keep racing as long as he can.
“I’m 72,” Force said. “People are like, ‘Why do you do this?’ It’s because it’s all I’ve got in my life next to my kids, my grandkids, and my wife. It keeps me alive. I tell fans all the time: ‘Get off the couch. Come to the races. Don’t let the old man in.’ I ain’t ever letting him in until I go.
“I’m not gonna quit. It ain’t over until I say it’s over.”
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