with Ashley Force Hood

 
 
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
 

Every month Ashley Force Hood is going to give us a brief look into the John Force Racing teams as seen from her perspective.  She will talk about interesting things she saw that relate to traveling to a race, events at a race or interesting fans or situations encountered along the way! 

Keep in mind Ashley’s schedule is normally very hectic, but she has committed to giving us a behind-the-scenes look at the wacky world of drag racing.


John Force Racing - News

4-8-09

Ashley’s Weekly Blog
Week of April 6

This past week, we raced in Las Vegas, Nevada. We unfortunately lost in the first round against Jack Beckman in a very close side by side race. Ironically we had beaten him in the final the previous weekend in Houston for our 2nd NHRA event win! It wasn’t how we hoped our weekend would go but that’s drag racing and there’s always another race!

On Monday after the Las Vegas event, John Force Racing stayed and tested. Since my Castrol GTX Mustang Funny Car has been running really well we decide not to test and save our testing sessions for later in the year or if we run in to problems, so only dad, Robert and Mike tested their funny cars. My sister Courtney’s A Fuel team tuned by Jerry Darien did want to test since her car has been having problems; however she had to go home for school. Since I used to race that car years ago, I jumped into the seat for the day and tested her BrandSource dragster for her! It was a lot of fun and strange at the same time to be back in a dragster when I’ve gotten so used to the funny car. There’s no motor in front of me, no Mustang body over me and I can see my front wheels! I also had to readjust to how to drive the dragster. Because of the short wheelbase, the funny car is a lot harder to steer and I have to be really aggressive when driving it. However the A Fuel dragster is the opposite. It takes gentle movements on the steering wheel to drive. I also had to remember how to trim the fuel and relearn my staging routine since it differs from my routine in the funny car.

Since my funny car team was not testing, they came over to help out with the A Fuel team and it was great to be able to drive for my old team and new team at the same time! We had a lot of fun and my crew chiefs Guido and Ron came over and worked with Jerry to work out the kinks…it was the best of both worlds.

At the end of the day we made some big changes and ran a great time for our final lap with a 5.43 at 266 mph. My sister Courtney text me through out the day while she was in class to see how her car was doing! This weekend Brittany and Courtney have a divisional race in Las Vegas, so hopefully the changes that the team made will help the car to run well at the race this weekend. My whole family will be there too, and though dad and I won’t be driving, we will be cheering my younger sisters and there team on the whole weekend! Enjoy your week and happy Easter!