1,000 Greatest Drivers: John Force
May the Fourth be with you.
All right, even though I still feel I don’t know enough about drag racing, I knew I had to do this to commemorate “Star Wars Day”, even though I do find it kind of stupid in the way I also find “Pi Day” fairly dumb. But I thrive on puns so what’s wrong with embracing other people’s puns? At least puns are less mean-spirited than most other forms of humor…
Obviously, I heard about Force constantly when I watched RPM2Night in the late ‘90s and I know Matt McLaughlin (my favorite columnist as a kid) absolutely revered him even though he was primarily a NASCAR fan first. Having read more about his story (which I really didn’t know much about until tonight), I can see why. It seems like he overcame a level of generational poverty that would make even Dale Earnhardt flinch to become an unparalleled success unusually late in life, proving that life truly can begin at forty. Obviously, this is a story that could never exactly be replicated in any open wheel, stock car, or touring car series because those series require more athleticism to the point where you could not win a title in your 50s or 60s under any circumstance (there are a few exceptions like Gabriele Tarquni in touring cars, but not many). However, drag racing is all about reaction time and horsepower, and those are things you can maintain late in life. I know many people would say drag racers shouldn’t count for a list like this because drag racing is about engineering skill, not driving skill. To an extent, I agree. I don’t think any NHRA drivers deserve to have top five seasons, although I will be giving top five seasons to drivers who set world land speed records prior to World War II, because it was a much bigger deal back then and those drivers frequently also had major circuit racing accomplishments. Nonetheless, while NHRA is too niche for me to feel comfortable giving anyone a top five season or (likely) ranking anyone in the overall top 100, I would consider anyone who thinks Force does not belong on a list like this to be objectively incorrect. (I know I already wrote a version of this preamble for Kenny Bernstein, but I promise I won’t do it for any other drag racers I include.
