Few figured that 14-time National Hot Rod Ass’n Funny Car champion John Force would be back in his Castrol GTX Ford Mustang by the start of the 2008 season. Not after multiple serious injuries from a racing accident at the Texas Motorplex Sept. 23.
But Brittany Force and her Uncle Walker knew better.
Now 21 and an alcohol dragster driver, she was in elementary school when a reporter asked her mother what made John Force a champion. Brittany Force whispered in her mom’s ear, “Say that Daddy never, ever, ever gives up.”
Force’s brother echoed that: “You can knock him down, whip him, stomp on him. But the next day, he’ll be knocking on your door.”
That day came Jan. 28 — just 127 days after Force suffered a compound fracture of the left ankle, a dislocation of the left wrist that required the insertion of pins and application of a hard cast, broken bones in the right foot and hand, a severe laceration of the right knee with ligament and tendon damage and mangled fingers and toes involving significant tissue loss.
He buckled back into his freshly upgraded 8,000-horsepower car. And after a get-reacquainted spurt at Firebird Int’l Raceway in Chandler, Ariz., he sped to a 4.782-second pass at 327.51 miles per hour. It was the quickest and fastest of any Funny Car driver in four days of pre-season testing.
Force is geared up for the season-opening Carquest Auto Parts Winternationals that begin Thursday at Auto Club Raceway in Pomona, Calif.
Many wondered privately how judicious it was for Force to try to compress five or six months worth of rehabilitation into two and a half months.
“He’s not perfect yet,” said therapist Rob Ortmayer, who has worked with Force for three hours a day, five days a week since he returned home to Yorba Linda, Calif., from his Dallas hospital stay. “But right off the bat, he knew what he wanted to be ready for, and that was [testing] and Pomona. He asked the physicians, ‘Do you think I’ll be ready by then?’ They said, ‘That’s achievable. We’ll have to see, but that’s achievable.’”
That was all Force needed to hear. And Ortmayer said Force’s “positive energy” is what fueled his healing, earned him clearance from six doctors, and put him in the seat of that Mustang Funny Car again so soon.
Still, Ortmayer said, “He’s so motivated and eager to get back that I think he needs an objective person to pull in the reins, but I haven’t had to yet.”
Why does a race-car driver have an appetite for the deliciously wicked vehicle that nearly cost him his life?
Derek Daly understands it. The only time he ever was hurt in a race car was one of the ugliest moments in open-wheel history. His September 1984 wreck during a CART event at Michigan Int’l Speedway shattered his car and his body. His litany of injuries concentrated on the lower limbs, but he also suffered a broken hip, pelvis, ribs and hand and a lacerated liver. Yet, he was back behind the wheel at the Indianapolis 500 the following May.
“I’m not sure it’s stubbornness,” he said, searching for the right word. “Drivers just apparently have this innate ability to strictly focus on being able to drive cars. It’s pure determination and commitment to still compete. Once you lose the desire, I think you need to quit. Alex Zanardi is a good example of a driver being motivated by desire.”
Zanardi lost his legs during a Sept. 15, 2001, crash in CART’s American Memorial race at Lausitz, Germany. Yet in May 2003, he completed the final 12 laps of that fateful 2001 race in a modified 2002 Reynard fitted with a hand-controlled accelerator.
“I am not a professional anymore,” Zanardi said a month later, “but I still feel very passionate for this sport. And if I come back to a form of racing, it will be in the driver spot.”

"To get better, setting a goal to get back in a car is the great motivator. Then it’s just hard work — the hardest you’ll ever go through.”

— Kenny Brack

Zanardi later raced touring cars.
Daly said drivers are indifferent to the concept of danger. “You’re aware of it but not to the point it becomes a distraction.” He also said, “It’s very difficult for the layperson to understand that mentality. It’s hard to explain to the layperson why people would take that kind of a risk in the first place.”
Curiously, he discovered, the act of driving wasn’t unbearable. “I came back at Indy in ’85,” he said, “and it was less pain to drive the car than to walk to the car. If I judged whether I was ready by the pain, I wouldn’t have done it. But when you’re driving the car, you’re not bearing any weight on your legs or feet.”
John Medlen, one of John Force Racing’s five crew chiefs, said of the boss, “He has so much desire he won’t know it hurts.”
Kenny Brack overcame life-threatening injuries from his horrifying crash in the 2003 IRL season finale at Texas Motor Speedway. He didn’t return to race until the 2005 Indianapolis 500, but he was testing in a Team Rahal Letterman car at Richmond, Va., six months after leaving the hospital, his many surgeries and healing-process setbacks mere memories.
“My mind set from the beginning was to learn as much as possible what state I was in and what could be done to get as well as possible,” Brack said. “At that time, I did not know how well I could get, so to drive a race car was kind of ‘out there’ to set as a goal. But I believe it’s important in everything you do to have a simple goal and one you can ‘touch.’ For me, it was ‘Do whatever I can today to be able to start tomorrow as good as possible.’ It worked… and meant I was getting better at the maximum speed.”
When he entered the first rehab center at Indianapolis, he told wife, Anita, “I may get wheeled in, but I am going to walk out of here.” When the team brought its motorhome to transport him to Columbus, Ohio, Brack said he “managed to stand up with crutches and then literally dragged myself across the parking lot, crawled up the motorhome stairs and into the bed in the back. I think everyone was frightened to death I was going to try to kill myself a second time.”
Testing at Richmond convinced Brack he wasn’t fit to race. His crew had to lift him from the car after 150 laps, well short of a full race distance there. The next day, he stopped taking medication and said he “set my mind to try to make a comeback in racing. From then on, it was 100 percent focus.” Within six months, he was convinced he could return to racing and do it right.
“Like it was God’s will, an opportunity came along,” he said. Ironically, Buddy Rice, his replacement, hurt his back, and team owner Bobby Rahal offered Brack the ride. He qualified at Indianapolis with the fastest time of the second weekend.
“For me, the biggest victory was already won. I was back and the future was in my own hands. I also did have good offers to continue,” Brack said. Instead, he retired.
What Brack’s experience reinforced is that “it’s always in your own mind. If you think someone is going to do the work for you, you are on the wrong track. The people around you can motivate and help and it’s impossible without this, but it’s the patient who ‘drives’ the situation. To get better, setting a goal to get back in a car is the great motivator. Then it’s just hard work — the hardest you’ll ever go through.”
Force found the same. “I cried a lot. I complained a lot. But I got real humble in the process. But heck, I can go to the bathroom by myself,” he said. “So, I’m looking good.”
Unlike any other driver who has faced extensive rehabilitation — such as Davey Hamilton, Ernie Irvan, A.J. Foyt, Jerry Nadeau, Scott Pruett, Johnny Rutherford, Cristiano da Matta — Force has unique inspiration.
His protégé, Eric Medlen, died last March from injuries sustained in a testing crash at Gainesville, Fla. Because of safety measures implemented following Medlen’s accident, Force credits the young driver with saving his life and sparing legend Kenny Bernstein, the man in the other lane who was collected into his wreck last September.
“I’m not glad what happened to Eric. I’m glad it happened to me,” Force said. “Maybe God had it bite us for a reason. Maybe, he just did. I have a whole new outlook on the Good Lord. I always believed in Him. I just wasn’t listening. I listen now. He told me to shut up and go back to work. I’ll limp for the rest of my life, and they tell me I’ll get arthritis. Don’t care. I’m going to build better race cars.
“I’m back in business,” Force said. “Got old hands that move, fingers that work. I never did hurt my head — and I can still talk with the best of them.”
And what he’s saying with his actions is what daughter Brittany figured out years ago —He never, ever, ever gives up.

2008 NHRA Season Kick Off

WHAT: 48th annual Carquest Auto Parts NHRA Winternationals, the first of 24 races in the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series.
WHERE: Auto Club Raceway at Pomona, Calif.
WHEN: Qualifying runs Thursday through Saturday, with eliminations on Sunday.
PURSE: Cash and contingency awards of more than $2 million in three professional classes.
’07 WINNERS: J.R. Todd (Top Fuel); Gary Scelzi (Funny Car); Greg Anderson (Pro Stock)
’07 CHAMPS: Tony Schumacher (Top Fuel); Tony Pedregon (Funny Car); Jeg Coughlin (Pro Stock)
QUICK HITS
• 14-time Funny Car champion John Force will make his return from injuries suffered Sept. 23 last year.
• Veteran Pro Stock Motorcycle competitor Antron Brown is making the transition to the Top Fuel class, racing a second car for David Powers Motorsports.
• Husband-and-wife racers Tommy Johnson, Jr. and Melanie Troxel will both compete in the Funny Car division this season.
• Longtime Funny Car crew chief Mike Neff will make the transition to driver in the fourth John Force Racing Funny Car.
• Dave Connolly, the leading winner in the Pro Stock class last year, will start the season on the sideline because of a lack of sponsorship.