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Gen2Cru: More than just second generation
Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr. were the elite in entertainment, the princes of postwar pop culture. Suave and scampish, debonair and devil-may-care, they crooned nightly at The Sands on The Strip in the 1960s. They were fresh and fun, and America was ready for glamour. Peter Lawford was thrown in as a conduit to Camelot and the Kennedys, and Joey Bishop exploited that new medium called television. And the Rat Pack was wildly popular. At the same time in California, a band of bad-boy hot-rodders was transforming into street toughs to automotive pioneers. Wally Parks was giving them respectability and safe venues to satisfy their need for speed -- all while sweeping them into an irresistible entertainment package. While the Rat Pack ruled and the rodders ran their loud cars, young John Medlen already was racing on drag strips near Lodi, California, and even in boats and on circle tracks. Meanwhile in Lubbock, Texas, with a half-midget championship to his credit, teenager Kenny Bernstein became the neighborhood ringleader. He worked on his Model A that he bought with savings from a part-time job at his dad's department store, and his friends gathered in his driveway to tinker with their hot rods and jalopies. Forrest Lucas was off the family farm in central Indiana, driving a dump truck, hauling dirt and gravel and just beginning to see that the industry could use some help with oils and lubricants. And at the time, John Force was transitioning from the restless young boy dreaming of being a football player or policeman to a long-haul trucker with a desire to race Funny Cars. By the mid-1980s, when Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Demi Moore, and Molly Ringwald, and their pals were grabbing headlines as Hollywood's so-called Brat Pack, Medlen, Bernstein, and Force were making names for themselves in the NHRA. Lucas was moving his family to California and planning to blitz the market with his own concoctions of oil mixtures and blends. By then they all were fathers, as well. a
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Gen2Cru not handed anything Today their children -- Brandon Bernstein, 33; Eric Medlen, 32; Ashley Force, 23; and Morgan Lucas, 22 -- represent the upcoming generation of drag racing in America. These four call themselves the Gen2Cru, a trendy tag that might suggest privilege and pampering. But that isn't the case.
He downplays his new Top Fuel team boss role with the Lucas Oil Dragster, calling it "kind of an overrated situation." Said Lucas, "I'm like a driver who's hanging out with a bunch of guys who like to race. I'm just the guy who says, 'Yeah, it's OK to spend that much money' or 'No, it’s not OK to spend that much money.' " a
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Ashley Force had to satisfy her mother's requirement that she finish
college. So the former high-school cheerleader didn't get to have a Mattel
doll produced in her likeness or a Super Comp or Top Alcohol Dragster
to drive until she completed a degree in communications from Cal State-Fullerton. a
d v e r t i s e m e n t Hangin' out and tellin' lies
a
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Medlen's pals: Unspoiled, Serious, Iceman Brandon and Ashley live in Orange County, California, while Morgan and Eric each have homes near their new shops along Brownsburg, Indiana's Nitro Alley. Bernstein said Medlen "likes to shop. He might not admit that he loves to do it. He tries to fly under the radar, but he's usually the one who likes to go and buy clothes." While no one is as garrulous as Eric, each has a lively personality. And while Eric and Brandon are about 10 years older than the other two, age is no problem to them. In racing experience, they're about the same "age." "Morgan, he's a great guy. He's a great driver, and he's doing a fabulous job," Eric, who broke in the same year," said. "It's like he says: 'Yeah, I got a chance because my dad owns Lucas Oil, and at least I know it and I don't act like it.' And he doesn't. He's a super-cool guy. Brandon, he's like his dad. He's a real serious and real intense competitor, and I really admire that about him. He's just like his dad, and his dad was great.
"If anybody is the Iceman, it's her. She's as cool as it gets," Eric said. "We all have some real good teachers. Morgan's got his dad and Joe Amato, and Mike Dunn helped him a little bit. I don't know if he still does, but in the beginning he did," Eric said. "Ashley and myself, of course, we have John [Force], and Brandon's got his dad. So we're all in pretty good shape." They are, at that.
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a d v e r t i s e m e n t
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Morgan
Lucas was the only one of the four who kicked around race tracks regularly,
collecting used and broken car parts and deciding early in life to drive
quick cars for a living. But he has embraced the work-for-everything-you-have
ethic he saw his parents live. "I'm not too good for anything,"
he said. 
Brandon
Bernstein got a clear idea of how unglamorous running a race team can
be. His father put him through a strict set of experiences by which to
learn the ropes, including earning a college education and keeping his
grades at a high level along the way. He graduated from Texas A&M
with a degree in kinesiology. 
Medlen
said the group makes no set dates to get together. "If we all have
time, we say, 'Hey, let's go get something to eat' or 'I'm getting in
[to a particular town on the schedule] early. You guys want to go play
golf or you want to ride go-karts or whatever -- I don't know . . . sit
around and see who can tell the biggest lie?' " 
"And
Ashley, you could go over there and say, 'Go get 'em,' and she just says,
'OK.' And it's like, 'Man, aren't you nervous or anything?' . . . 'Ah,
I guess. . . . I don't know. Yeah. . . . No . . . I don't know . . . ' 
© Competitionplus 2006
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