After watching Scelzi and Ron Capps lose just ahead of him, Force a window of opportunity opened up for the 119-time tour winner. Unfortunately, it slammed shut when Pedregon’s 4.778 at 316.75 mph was just good enough to cover Force’s slightly quicker 4.752 at 323.27 mph in the Castrol GTX Start Up Ford.

For Force, it was a terribly disappointing day climaxed by teammate Eric Medlen’s loss to Pedregon in the final round.

“I’ll live with it over the winter – losing my championship. It’ll be a long off season, but I definitely want it back. The biggest thing I can take out of here, since we didn’t win the championship, is that my Next Generation drivers, Eric, Robert (Hight), Ashley, my youngest girls, Brittany and Courtney, they all made me proud this season.

“Other than that, all I can say is that tomorrow we’ll go to work getting ready for next year. Our race cars are good. The stuff we’ve learned in the last two weeks since Vegas, I’m really excited about. We’ve got a new Mustang coming. My sponsors have been rallying around me. We’ll be back.”

For Medlen, who moved around Hight and into fourth place in the final standings, just making it to the starting line for the final round was a moral victory. Just as his Castrol SYNTEC Ford crossed the finish line after beating Tommy Johnson Jr.’s Chevrolet in the semifinals, an engine explosion blew the visor up on his helmet and temporarily disoriented him. But the time he got his bearings and got the parachutes deployed, he was into the sand pit at the end of the track.

That little excursion broke the chassis in four places and destroyed the body but, with the help of Force’s crew, Hight’s crew and a handful of other volunteers, including chassis builder Steve Plueger and Funny Car rival Tim Wilkerson, Medlen at least made an attempt in the final.