September 11, 2024, Reading, Pennsylvania The team behind Brittany Force, the two-time World Champion, and her Monster Energy Chevrolet Top Fuel dragster see starting the NHRA’s Countdown to the Championship from the No. 9 position as more of an opportunity than a challenge, and they plan to take advantage of it this week at Maple Grove Raceway in the 39th Pep Boys Nationals.
The 38-year-old had to work hard to even make the starting field after missing one race to be with family and failing to qualify for another, all during a season marred by setbacks that included a 300 mph crash that left her father, 16-time Funny Car champion John Force, with a Traumatic Brain Injury from which he is currently recovering.
She thinks she can win it, though, now that she’s in the race.
If that sounds a little too confident, given that no driver has ever won the championship from a No. 9 start, consider this: Force has seen two separate John Force Racing teammates move up nine spots in the standings during the playoffs.
Austin Prock moved up from 12th to third in Top Fuel points in 2022 before he got into NHRA President Robert Hight’s Cornwell Tools Chevy Camaro this season. Hight, who is presently on medical leave, is the only driver to have won the Funny Car championship from the No. 10 starting position.
Force was unable to begin her next ascent in a more conducive setting than Maple Grove, the track where she set the current national mark for the NHRA (3.623 seconds), the track speed record (337.66 miles per hour), and the location where she won 66.6% of her two-car races (18–9).
“I’m excited to be starting the Countdown with the first race,” the 16-time tour winner remarked. She qualified as the top qualifier and advanced to the semifinals of the 70th U.S. Nationals; she said, “The competition for Top Fuel is the toughest I’ve experienced in my career. I’m proud of our team’s fight to clinch our position in Indianapolis.”
“We achieved significant advancements during the season, and the best part of the Countdown is that everyone’s points are reset,” declared the 2013 NHRA Rookie of the Year. All (qualified) drivers will therefore get a chance to pursue the championship beginning at Maple Grove.
We have the national record and have won races here, so I feel good going in, but we can’t afford to make any mistakes. On race day, the strategy is to keep going round by round in qualifying.
She finished second last year and won the Pep Boys Nationals in 2017. She was the top qualifier in 2015, 2019, 2021, and 2022 (as well as the No. 2 starter the year before).
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