‘Hot Rod’ Only Driver To Master Right Lane In Top Fuel Competition

KENT, Wash. — Ashley Force followed her father down the track in the second pairing of round two Sunday in the Schuck’s Auto Supply NHRA Nationals. Right after he advanced by defeating Tony Pedregon, the 14-time champion cautioned that his daughter still is learning to handle the 7,000-horsepower Funny Car and joked, “It took me 30 years and I still suck!”
Within minutes, Ashley Force, running against Kenny Bernstein and the Monster Energy Dodge Charger, hit the wall nearly head-on around half-track as both she and Bernstein had to pedal their cars. Her Castrol Ford Mustang fishtailed several times, crushed into the wall and spun around with a flash of fire, folding the body all the way back.
She was unhurt, popping from her seat right away, even smiling and within a minute wrapping her hair back in a ponytail and she spoke with her dad and Safety Safari members.
“I am just fine,” she said gamely. “I am sorry for my family and team, because I know what that’s like from watching my dad. I got into some trouble. My team is great, and I trust them. We’ll be back at the next race, at Sonoma.”
She said correctly that pedaling a car is not something a driver can learn without being forced to do it.
“That’s the toughest thing,” Ashley Force said. “In testing, you don’t practice pedaling. My dad knows how to do that, and that's why he has won 14 championships. I don’t have that experience. I can only get better by practicing — but not like that!”
 
• John Force, who has been mired as far back as 20th place in the Funny Car standings, said he hasn’t given his sponsors their money’s worth this year. But he did in the first round, as the No. 13 seed (16th on merit but beneficiary of NHRA’s Top-10 rule that inserted Jim Head, Cruz Pedregon and Gary Scelzi into the field). Force eliminated No. 4 Tony Bartone to move into eighth place in the standings. That put him on the provisional list of drivers eligible to compete for the championship. Three more races remain for him to secure a spot.
 
• In spite of losing to Ashley Force in the opening round, point-leader Ron Capps became the first Funny Car driver to claim one of the eight spots for the Countdown to the Championship.
 
• Rod Fuller was the lone Top Fuel driver to win from the right lane. After eliminating Clay Millican with a 4.552-second elapsed time at 322.53 miles per hour in the seventh of eight pairings, he said, “There’s nothing wrong with that right lane. I don’t want the fans to think this is a one-lane race track. We just proved it with that 55, and she was pretty conservative.” Fuller lost in the semifinals to eventual runner-up Brandon Bernstein but clinched the class's No. 1 seeding for the Countdown's top eight.
 
• No. 5 Pro Stock qualifier Greg Anderson, making his 107th-consecutive race in his Summit Racing Pontiac GTO, said he was concerned about going “into race day not knowing what the track will hold.” He learned in the first round against Jeg Coughlin it will take a 6.654-second e.t., which was low time of the weekend until winner Dave Connolly’s track-record 6.649-second pass in the final round. Anderson's 207.50-mph speed in that first-round victory, though, remained the class’s fastest of the meet. It came as Anderson won his 450th-career round of eliminations.
 
• J.R. Todd might not have liked it, but he took it Saturday. “It kind of stinks to get only one run, but it’s my first No. 1 [qualifier award] so I’ll take it,” the Torco/Skull Shine dragster driver said following his 4.577-second run at 318.39 mph Saturday. “I was ready to go out there and pedal it if I had to, [but] it was a nice, smooth run.”
 
• Doug Greenfield, new general manager of the facility that will celebrate its 50th birthday next year, said a number of programs are in the works, with even more to follow in their five-to-seven-year plan. “We’re making changes like you wouldn’t believe around here,” he said.
“The next project is we’re going to relocate the track,” Greenfield said. “This original track will stay. But we’ll have a sportsman track that goes north and south.”
Russell Stevenson, director of track operations, said Pacific Raceways has 17 acres of new paving, along with a brand-new state-of-the-art playground for children, coin-operated showers for men and women, more than 100 new trees, a new office building that includes a diecast and art store and putting green.
“We’re cleaning the place up. Full speed ahead,” Stevenson said.
One of the new features is a three-tiered $2,500-a-table patio with umbrella tables on each side of the tower. The areas were full Saturday for the lone full qualifying session.
The facility, more than just a drag strip, houses a 2.25-mile road course.