Force Focuses on Prize After Blinking in 1992

John Force, the irrepressible funny car drag racer from Yorba Linda, made the mistake of getting overconfident last year in his run at a third National Hot Rod Assn. championship, but he is determined not to this season.

Force, the series champion in 1990 and ‘91, set an NHRA record for most fuel driver victories in a season when he won No. 8 last Sunday at Seattle. He holds a 3,136-point lead over defending champion Cruz Pedregon of Moorpark with six of 18 national events remaining. The season will end Oct. 31 at Pomona.

“We want to keep winning, to keep on knocking out rounds until there’s no way anyone can catch us,” Force said from Spokane, Wash., where he is testing his Castrol GTX Olds funny car--the one known as “Brute Force.”

“We’re still holding team meetings like the championship was at stake every race. I don’t want to think any lead is enough. At every race I give the crew and the team a pep talk, just like a football coach. I want to be aggressive every time out, and I want the team to be hungry for more wins every time we unload off the truck.

“I remember last year. We thought we had it when we got to Seattle, so we started testing new ideas, looking for some bigger numbers instead of sticking with what we had. In the process, we got lost, and when Cruz got on that hot streak, we couldn’t get back in the groove.”

Force had a 1,616-point lead over Pedregon with seven events remaining last year. At Seattle, Force lost to Gary Clapshaw in a stunning first-round upset, and the following week at Brainerd, Minn., Pedregon began a streak of five victories in Larry Minor’s Olds Cutlass that swept him past Force to his first championship.

“As soon as the title is out of reach (of the competition), then we’ll go into our test mode,” Force said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if, when that happens, our race car will go a little downhill. We’ll be preparing for next year, and when you start testing new ideas, they don’t all work out right away. When you try new technology, you can stub your toes. We know, we did it last year.

“When the season ended, though, we worked harder than ever. We went searching for what we’d lost; we tested down in Florida and we found it.

“We spent money, a lot of it, but it’s paid off. We added Bernie Fedderly as a second crew chief with Austin Coil last year, and it worked so well we added another one this year in Larry Frazier. Coil wasn’t too keen about the idea, but when we saw how much input he could get from the other guys, he went along with it.”

Fedderly came from Minor’s team, where he had worked with Ed McCulloch and Pedregon, but when Minor moved the team headquarters to Indianapolis, Fedderly decided to stay closer to home. Frazier ran his own team last year with Kim LaHaie and Maurice Dupont as his drivers before joining Force.

“With the added guys, we can do things like making adjustments in the clutch box right up to the last second,” Force said. “That’s usually done in the pits, a half-hour before a run. But right before a run, Bernie will walk down the track, measuring the temperature at different places, and he and Austin make last-second changes in the clutch according to his readings. I’m sitting there, inside the car, hoping they don’t do anything crazy. It makes me nervous, but it’s paid off.”

Along with his eight victories, Force also set a national elapsed time record of 5.019 seconds in the Mopar Nationals at Englishtown, N.J., and ran the second-fastest quarter-mile in funny car history with a 294.69-m.p.h. pass at Baytown, Tex. Freddie Neeley set the record of 295.37 earlier in the season at Gainesville, Fla.

Force said match races between national events have helped concentration for him and the team.

“Just the fact that we’re running more means I’m in the seat all the time, and I know it’s helping me keep my mind on racing,” he said.

The fun-loving Force has managed to squeeze in some excitement between victories. At Gainesville, he played host to a wedding of two of his fans in the Castrol pits, and while in Memphis he visited Graceland, the home of his idol, Elvis Presley. Force lists his hobby as collecting Elvis memorabilia.

STOCK CARS--Cajon Speedway will hold the longest and richest race of the season Saturday night when the Winston West series stops at the three-eighth-mile paved oval in El Cajon. A purse of $33,501 will be at stake in the Winston 200, a 200-lap (75 mile) race featuring defending series champion Bill Sedgwick and 1993 points leader Rick Carelli in Chevrolets, and leading rookie-of-the-year candidate Dirk Stephens in a Ford. Winston Racing sportsmen stocks will also race, followed by a destruction derby.

Other Saturday night attractions: Saugus Speedway will present the Winston Twin 50s, double points races for sportsman, plus Grand American and train racing. . . . Santa Maria Speedway will continue with the Kragen championship series. . . . Bakersfield Speedway will have a late model 50-lap country national. . . . Blythe Speedway will hold a program before taking two weeks off.

SPEEDWAY BIKES--Sam Ermolenko qualified for the World Finals in last week’s semifinal round in Sweden, meaning three Americans will be in the championship round on Aug. 29 at Poking, Germany. Billy Hamill and Greg Hancock qualified earlier in Italy. Ronnie Correy failed to make it into the finals in Sweden, but will be an alternate.

Lake Perris Raceway has changed from weekly Thursday night racing to the second and fourth Thursdays of each month, starting tonight. . . . Speedway USA in Victorville, after being dark last week for the San Bernardino County Fair, will resume weekly racing Saturday night. Sunday, Speedway USA will have a special program of Southern California Modified Midget Assn. micro-sprints. . . . Friday night will be KIK-FM/Trader Magazine Night at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa for an evening of scratch and handicap racing.

MISCELLANY--The eighth round of the Willow Springs Motorcycle Club’s road racing series is scheduled for Sunday at Willow Springs Raceway. . . . Rick Webb of Ontario and Ed Sellnow of Crestline will continue their competition for the Southern California Pro Gas Assn. drag racing championship Saturday night at the Los Angeles County Raceway in Palmdale. . . . Bakersfield Raceway will be the site of a sportsman drag racing program Saturday night. Featured will be junior dragsters.