72-year-old Force returning to NHRA for 45th year to ‘fight the enemy’ and chase 17th championship.
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- John Force is set to begin his 45th NHRA drag-racing season.
- Force has battle depression and relentlessly pushed forward to earn 154 victories and 16 titles.
- The 2022 NHRA Camping World Drag Racing season beings on Feb. 17-20 with the Lucas Oil Winternationals at Pomona, California.
Funny Car’s John Force and his four-driver contingent will be among the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing professional racers at the Nitro Spring Training event Feb. 10-12 at Chandler, Ariz., that leads into Valentine’s Day.
And Cupid’s arrow has struck the 154-time winner and 16-time Funny Car champion with a curious desire. Force says he wants “to go out there and get my ass chewed by (three-time Funny Car champion Matt) Hagan, get insulted by the best there is, and take my kickin’, because it makes me fight and makes that depression go away.”
People ask him, “Don’t you get mad at that guy or that gal because of something they said to ya?”
John Force’s win in New England last season was No. 153 in his NHRA Funny Car career.
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His reply is “Huh-uh—because they keep me alive, and I thank ’em for it. They’re the best asset I got, next to my race car and my children. The ones out there that want to beat me up, they’re making me stay alive.
“And that’s why I’ve stayed in this sport so long,” Force said. “You don’t think that 20 years I didn’t think about quitting? I thought, ‘How much more can you do? You’ve won all these championships. Does it even matter? No.’
“I go to work to fight the enemy that I love. I fight the enemy that I love, and that’s what I do. They keep me alive,” he said. I’m 72 years old, and I’m ready to go drag racin’.”
He’ll get his chance at the Feb. 10-12 Professional Racers Organization-sponsored preseason test and again the following week at the Feb. 17-20 Lucas Oil Winternationals at Pomona, California, that starts the 2022 Camping World Drag Racing Series season.
John Force crosses the line at Las Vegas last season.
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“I’m gifted with depression,” Force said with a laugh. “It makes me go to work. I call it a gift, but I go to work. Get on a treadmill every morning. My wife will say, ‘I can tell when your depression hits you. I can hear the treadmill downstairs.’ Yeah, every day now, every morning. I’ve got to get on it to rid of it.
“Doctor says he can give me a pill for it, and I know that can fix it and take it away. But I also know that in the world I live in, I’ve got to make decisions. And If I went around feelin’ good all the time, I’d make a lot of wrong decisions. So I take the balance of being over-the-center depressed, and I go the other direction.
“Just don’t ever want it to take me too far. If you get too far—you look at Robin Williams, look at these movie stars, what happened to their lives. I’ve studied about depression, and let me tell you, it’s a tough deal. I don’t know for sure if I’ve really got it. Doc says I do. But I fight it every day, and that’s why I go to work every day, seven days a week.”
“It’s really a great life. But it is Groundhog Day.”
In a sense, he has been on the drag-racing treadmill since he broke into the NHRA at the 1977 Winternationals. He said, “It’s really a great life. But it is Groundhog Day.”
In various interviews throughout the years, he has traced his dream-chasing: “I went to Australia. I was a leaker. I got laughed at. . . . The first 15 years of my career I was losing every first round, mostly not qualifying, and then I started hitting. . . . When I first got into racing, I always had a love for cars. I loved the camaraderie of the team. I loved the competition. As I evolved, I realized what it took to become a winner. It took money, and that’s when I started chasing corporate America. I had no personal wealth. I had to find sponsors to get me the crew chiefs I needed to win. . . . I love it. I’m in love with it to the point I’m just stupid. I owe the sport of drag racing. I will stay here till I drop.”
He started earning money to race by dressing up first like a tree, then a clown, waving a sign to entice customers to visit a car dealership. To please early sponsor Wendy’s (which simply fed him and the crew), he put on a dress and red wig with braids to masquerade as “Wendy the Hamburger Girl.” And reducing his boardroom experience to its common denominator, he said a few months ago, “I’m still that clown on the street corner.” He’s still scrapping for money for his team to race and be able to win.
“When I was a kid,” Force said, “there was nothing that made me tougher than someone punching me in the nose. When they did that, my brother Louie would say, ‘The more you get beat up, you’d get up fightin’ and yellin’ and screamin’.’ He said, ‘That’s the only thing you understand.’
“I’m a fighter.”
Keyword: NHRA Legend John Force: Getting My Ass Chewed ... Makes That Depression Go Away