John Force getting back in gear at NHRA Northwest Nationals

When John Force left Seattle last July, the 14-time Funny Car season champion driver knew age and lingering injuries were about to make him irrelevant in a sport he once dominated.

Force didn't win a single race in 2009 and had only one win over two seasons.

"We were just lost," Force admitted this week before traveling to Kent to run in the 23rd annual NHRA Northwest Nationals at Pacific Raceways, which begins with qualifying on Friday.

A crash that nearly killed him in Dallas in 2007 didn't give Force the strength to really be competitive.

"You have to have energy to make that car win 14 championships. I could barely hold down the clutch or pull the brake pedal," Force said. "We went from the top to the cellar."

In the offseason, Force, 61, trimmed his team from four Funny Cars to three, brought in Mike Neff to work with Austin Coil and Bernie Fedderly to tune his car and redoubled his efforts in the gym to slow down the inevitable march of Father Time.

Force opened the season in February with a win in Pomona. He comes into the first leg of the Western Swing — Sonoma, Calif., and Denver follow — this weekend leading the Funny Car points standings with four wins in 13 races this season.

Force's numbers are staggering. He has 130 Funny Car wins, 87 more than Tony Pedregon who is next on the list. Force has been to the finals a record 208 times. In head-to-head rounds this year, he is 26-9, a winning percentage even better than his career record of 1,064-409.

"Some say winning is 70 percent the car and 30 percent the driver, but I think it's 50-50," Force said. "Driving these monsters at 300 mph is all about reaction and trusting what you know. You can't be thinking when you're in there. If you have to think about things like how long to hold the clutch down, the magic is just not there."

After working so hard to regain that magic, Force isn't about to put down the wand. He recently signed a five-year extension with Ford.

"I'm religious about anything I do," Force said. "I used to spend two hours a day in the bar, now I spend it in the gym. I lift weights four or five days a week, building muscle. I'll never be completely back to where I was because of age, but I can tell you I'm in better shape now than I was when I was 30."

Besides winning, Force is busy grooming youngest daughter Courtney Force to join daughter Ashley Force Hood as a Funny Car driver.

Courtney Force won in an A-Fuel Dragster in Kent last year, a win that led her to fully make the commitment that she wants to become a Funny Car driver. She has started riding in dad's Funny Car as it is towed around a road course to get used to the feel of being in the seat and will be in the car for the first time this weekend when it is actually running.

"Before, it was more of a hobby for her," John Force said. "Now she really wants to do it. She has that addiction to winning that I got when I won my first race."

Force maintains a frenetic pace, running his race team that includes defending Funny Car champion Robert Hight, his son-in-law who is second in the points standings, and daughter Ashley, who is currently fifth.

He is working on a book, considering offers to restart the popular reality TV series "Driving Force" and remains committed to safety innovations.

Winning, though, is really what drives him.

"Sponsors expect results, especially in this economy," Force said. "You get caught without a sponsor you can be out of business quick. I need to win to keep the money coming in."

Notes

• Antron Brown, the last driver to sweep the Western Swing when he became the seventh driver ever to do it last season in a Top Fuel car, doesn't really expect it to happen again anytime soon.

"It was one of those dreams stretches that couldn't be dreamed any better," Brown said. "It's a feat just to win one of them."

• Cory McClenathan, who is third in the Top Fuel points standings and has two wins this season, will be making his 19th start here, more than any Top Fuel driver in history.

McClenathan, who races for Don Schumacher, swept the swing in 1997, his only win in Seattle.

• In Pro Stock it could be father vs. son with both Johnny Gray and son Shane Gray in the field.

Shane, a rookie who is in ninth place, beat his father in their only head-to-head matchup so far this season in Englishtown, N.J. on June 13.

"When I pulled up I wanted to outrun him real bad," Johnny Gray said. "But when his car pulled away a little bit, I couldn't have been prouder."