FORCE BEATS CAPPS FOR HISTORIC 1,000TH ROUND WIN IN ST. LOUIS

MADISON, Ill. – One week after his daughter made Funny Car history with a breakthrough victory in Atlanta, Ga., John Force celebrated his 59th birthday Sunday by becoming the first driver to win 1,000 competitive rounds in the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series.

When Force drove his Castrol GTX High Mileage Ford Mustang to a quarter mile time of 4.862 seconds, 320.20 miles per hour to beat defending event champion Ron Capps in the first round of Sunday’s 12th annual O’Reilly Midwest Nationals, it propelled him to what may be his ultimate accomplishment in the sport.

NHRA officials suspended first round competition to bring Force back to the starting line area where he was congratulated by NHRA president Tom Compton and presented a crystal trophy commemorating his accomplishment.

“You can’t win without a good crew, sponsors like Castrol, Ford, the Auto Club and Old Spice and crew chiefs like Austin Coil and Bernie Fedderly,” Force said. “Five hundred races (a milestone he achieved at Atlanta) just means you showed up a lot. But winning a thousand rounds, that means that at a point in time, we were pretty good.”

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