What Does Owi Stand for on John Forces Car
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From the March 2014 Issue of Car and DriverC/D:How's it going?JF:Right now in this economy it's tough for everybody; NASCAR, IndyCar, and drag racing. I've got some great partners. Auto Club has moved out five years with us; Mac Tools moved out five. So I've still got strength. Traxxas, I've got another four years with them. My daughter Courtney drives their Funny Car. We've got all the way to the end of 2014. I've really got a lot of respect for Castrol and Ford, who are going to pull out at the end of our contract in 2014. They could have waited until next year to tell me, and they didn't. That gave me a year and a half to take a run at it. And boy, I've taken the charge on it. I bought ads in USA Today and SportsBusiness Journal to tell the world that after 25 years John Force is on the market—and his daughter Brittany is in the Top Fuel car. I look at it as a positive—an opportunity to, you know, see what's out there. I hired an agency, Just Marketing International, and I'm working very close with them. I am going back to Hollywood with my TV show, Driving Force, and I'm meeting with Octagon Entertainment and Rogers & Cowan, a big publicist group, that's going to help me get the job done and get more exposure in this economy than just what we get at the racetrack.C/D:Well, um...JF:I'm no young chicken. But I live in the gym every other day. Since that crash in '07. That was the same year that we lost Eric [Medlen] when he died in a crash at Gainesville. And then we realized we have chassis problems. And I got into the business, building chassis. And here I am today. We got that up and running and our motor program is up and running and it's time for us to get back to winning championships. I won in 2010. And right now Robert Hight and myself and Courtney are all fighting in the Countdown with four races left, and we've got a shot at that title.C/D:So...JF:Look at NASCAR: Those guys at my age, they all retired 10 years ago. And it's not like I need to be on fire out there for three or four hours. I have to have the energy to react to that tree. That's where the race is won or lost, on that start line. If you've got a good race car. And I always said I could drive these cars blindfolded. And nobody, in the history of this sport, has made as many runs as John Force has. I'm just starting to get good at it. I say I'm just getting started. It's what I love to do. I'm a road warrior; I love the road. I don't know how to go home. I've been gone so many years, and now my kids, my wife, everybody is out here with me. All my girls are part of John Force Racing.
C/D:And...JF:I was a football player in school. And you don't think the girls are going to do it. But here they are in school taking different shop classes—welding and stuff. It was like, "Where's that coming from?" And then later, as [the daughters] turned 16, they wanted to go to Frank Hawley's driving school and that put them in the Super Comp dragsters. They did Super Comp for three years and A/Fuel [Top Alcohol Dragster] for three years... those are 260-mph cars. And now they're running 330. And they're doing it well. Ashley took a few years off so we could have some grandkids. And my daughter Adria, she runs John Force Racing... does all of the money in the company. She's the CFO. And of course her husband, Robert, drives the Auto Club Ford. And now Brittany is in dragsters. It's a family affair. They call us the first family of drag racing—some announcer said that. We're having a ball. We're loving it. And we're still delivering. C/D:Then...JF:Right now we're in an economy and we're in trouble. The crowds are down some. There's a lot of change that's got to come to NHRA. We've got to sharpen our pencils. Our TV package has got to be improved. There's a lot of stuff. NASCAR is down, they say, 50 percent. It doesn't show over here that we're down like that, because we don't have the crowds they have. What we've got to do is: We've got to work harder. Let me tell you, I always joked that the TV show—we ran it for two years—would give me a heart attack. Because you live it and they follow you in your everyday life. But you know why we're doing it? Very simple. To bring a sponsor into this sport you have to offer them the crowds—crowds are down a little. You've got to offer them a TV package—that needs improvement. So I'm going to bring back the TV show, and I'm going to find the balance. I'm going to find new ground, new people to grow our sport of NHRA.C/D:Okay. So is there anything you would have done differently?JF:More time with my children.
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What Does Owi Stand for on John Forces Car
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