Irresistible Force
by CP Staff
The NHRA season ramps up this weekend with the 45th CARQUEST Winternationals in Pomona, CA.
Through no fault of his own, Team Force rookie Robert Hight was on the outside looking in Friday as a steady rain put the remainder of pro qualifying in jeopardy and left him facing the prospect of being on the sideline for Sunday’s race.
On Thursday, a glitch in the timing system gave Hight no time on the run and, basically, he was left with no recourse. Rain on Friday forced officials to cancel qualifying. Hight hopes to get at least one more chance today.
Hight wasn’t alone in his frustration. Top Fuel driver Doug Kalitta, tapped by many as the favorite to win the 2005 championship, also got a “no time” as one of the last two dragsters down the track in the first session. Kalitta wasn’t qualified Friday, either, even though he was right alongside reigning POWERade champion Tony Schumacher, who was caught in 4.487 seconds.
After Hight’s run, first Cruz and then Tony Pedregon broke the 4.80 second barrier in their Chevy Monte Carlos, the Ford chiefs began making adjustments.
Eric Medlen responded to the changes with a time of 4.753 at 325.85 mph to briefly take the top spot. Force then blistered the new racing surface with the second quickest quarter mile in Funny Car drag racing history, breaking the track record he set last November in the Auto Club Finals.
“The conditions were good,” Force said. “We know this car knows how to run 4.60s (but) we weren’t really trying to do it that time, maybe just a low 4.70. It just had a mind of its own. I think it got a little cooler and that helped.”
“The new concrete they poured is nice and smooth. It used to be that it’d always rattle the tires a little at the hit, but this time it didn’t. I could see for the first time ever here. Whatever (the NHRA) did to fix it was worth it.”
On Wednesday, Force announced that he has signed a contract extension with BP Lubricants that will keep him in the cockpit of the Castrol GTX Start Up Ford Mustang through the 2010 NHRA drag racing season.
The new contract also extends the Castrol SYNTEC brand’s sponsorship of a second Ford Mustang driven by Eric Medlen and brings Force’s 22-year-old daughter, Ashley, under the Castrol sponsorship umbrella in both the present and the future.
Since teaming up with Castrol, John Force has won almost one third of all races contested in the NHRA Series (114 of 374). In his 19-year association with the sponsor, he has failed to qualify just once. He entered the 2005 campaign having put a Castrol GTX Funny Car in the field at 346 consecutive NHRA races dating back to Oct. 31, 1987.
Follow Up
After qualifying second, Force suffered traction problems that ultimately resulted in a supercharger explosion allowing veteran Jim Head to sneak by for a first round victory.
Force, a 114-time tour winner, was quickly joined on the sidelines by Eric Medlen and the Castrol SYNTEC Ford and by rookie Robert Hight and the Team Castrol/Auto Club Mustang.
“It wasn’t what we wanted and wasn’t what we expected,” Force said. “It’s just one of the things you have to learn to deal with. We’ll just regroup and do better next time. We know we’ve got good race cars. We just didn’t have things go our way today.”
It was only the second time in history that all three Force Racing Mustangs were eliminated in the first round.
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