DALLAS — Recuperating from injuries suffered a week earlier in a crash at the Texas Motorplex, drag racing icon John Force acknowledged a “stupid mistake” Sunday night while vowing to continue his crusade to create a better race car.
“The stupid thing I did was that Ford had set me up with blue boxes they developed to give us data from a crash, like the black boxes on airplanes,” Force said. “For some reason, I didn’t think I needed them on every car (so) I took them off my car to save five pounds so I could stay in this Countdown. 
“Well, I stayed in the Countdown, but it don’t do you no good, guys, if you don’t have legs to drive your race car,” said the 14-time champion who, among other things,  suffered a compound fracture of the left ankle and broken bones in his right foot. “We learned a lot (from the Motorplex crash in which the chassis broke in two following a tire failure), but we could have learned so much more (if the blue box had been in place). So, shame on me.”
Force’s next goal is to promote the development of a protective “tub” that might help mollify leg and foot injuries like those from which he is recovering at Baylor University Medial Center.
“I had no head injuries, no neck injuries, no back injuries, no bleeding, not a even a Band-Aid on anything but my hands and feet,” Force said. “The next issue is to put the driver in an Indy Car-type monocoque that protects his legs.” 
“I wish I could explain it to you, but I don’t fully understand it myself. Bottom line, I’ve got the best people in the world working on it.  I’ve got John Medlen, Eric’s dad, who heads up the Eric Medlen Project. I’ve got 15 Ford engineers, Dr. John Melvin and all the crew chiefs.” 
Force, drag racing’s most prolific winner with 125 NHRA POWERade tour victories, also suffered broken and mangled fingers on his right hand and a dislocated left wrist when his Castrol GTX High Mileage Ford Mustang suffered a tire failure at 300 miles per hour.
Force’s injuries were addressed in six hours of surgery last Sunday night by Dr. Michael Foreman, chief of trauma services at Baylor, orthopedic traumatologist Dr. Alan Jones and orthopedic surgeon Dr. David Zehr, a specialist in hand injuries. Force’s prognosis for a full recovery is excellent.