With two of his race teams battling for the NHRA Mission Foods Funny Car championship and daughter Brittany showing flashes of the form that carried her to a pair of Top Fuel titles, drag racing icon John Force has secured clearance from doctors treating him for a TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) to attend the 24th NHRA Nevada Nationals, Nov. 1-3, at The Strip in Las Vegas Motor Speedway.<\/p>\n
\u201cVegas is close enough to home that (my wife) Laurie and I can drive over,\u201d Force said.\u00a0\u201cI want to show my support for our race teams, the fans and all our sponsors.\u00a0They\u2019ve stuck with me during a hard time, and I want them to know that I haven\u2019t forgotten them and I haven\u2019t gone anywhere.\u00a0I\u2019ve just been doing my rehab, trying to stay strong.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 75-year-old resident of Yorba Linda, Calif., an inductee into all the major auto racing Halls of Fame, acknowledged that doctors have been treating him not only for the injury he suffered in the June 23rd crash in Richmond, Va., but for the cumulative effect of the multitude of hard hits he has absorbed in a 50-year career during which he has collected 157 tour victories and 16 championships.<\/p>\n
Before the crash, Force already had won twice this year and his PEAK Antifreeze and Coolant Chevrolet team was solidly in contention for the championship.\u00a0After missing two races, that team returned at Brainerd, Minn., with former World Champion Jack Beckman in the seat of the PEAK Camaro.<\/p>\n
Beckman won the NHRA Midwest Nationals at St. Louis on Sept. 30 and, entering the LVMS event, the next to last race in the Countdown to the Championship, trails only teammate Austin Prock, a seven-time winner in the Cornwell Tools and AAA Chevrolet, in the Mission driver standings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m still a work in progress,\u201d Force said.\u00a0\u201cI have good days and bad days, but I\u2019m motivated.\u00a0Beckman\u2019s been doing a good job working with Dan Hood, (Chris) Cunningham and (Tim) Fabrisi.\u00a0He tells me it\u2019s still my car but he\u2019s driving it like it\u2019s his.\u00a0It\u2019s been exciting to watch him and (Austin) Prock on Fox but watching on TV is not the same as being there.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to be there for Brittany and that team with (David) Grubnic and John Collins.\u00a0They\u2019re gonna win a race with Monster and\u00a0HendrickCars.com<\/a>\u00a0and Chevrolet and I want to be there when they do, and I really can\u2019t wait to see all my guys.\u00a0I love them and I\u2019ve missed them and can\u2019t wait to be with them again.\u201d<\/p>\n This story was originally published on October 24, 2024. <\/p>\n The post John Force Set to Return to Track First Time Since Violent Crash, Will Support JFR Teams at NHRA Nevada Nationals<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With two of his race teams battling for the NHRA Mission Foods Funny Car championship and daughter Brittany showing flashes of the form that carried her to a pair of Top Fuel titles, drag racing icon John Force has secured clearance from doctors treating him for a TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) to attend the 24th […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96644\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}