The secret to Ashley Force Hood’s success in the last two seasons doesn't revolve around a magic tune-up.

Nor is it an unlimited operating budget. It’s not even the guidance of her 14-time championship winning father.

Force Hood adamantly contends that it’s not rocket science.

It’s the same principle that Tony Schumacher boasted of during his reign of terror in Top Fuel.

For Force Hood the key to her strong running Castrol Funny Car is simply -- continuity. Job Turnover is at a Minimum, Success is at a Maximum …

The secret to Ashley Force Hood’s success in the last two seasons doesn't revolve around a magic tune-up.

Nor is it an unlimited operating budget. It’s not even the guidance of her 14-time championship winning father.

Force Hood adamantly contends that it’s not rocket science.

It’s the same principle that Tony Schumacher boasted of during his reign of terror in Top Fuel.

For Force Hood the key to her strong running Castrol Funny Car is simply -- continuity.

Continuity has been a goal, Force Hood said, that was implemented during the 2007, her rookie season on the NHRA Full Throttle tour. That first season provided a strong foundation for the run of success this season.
Force Hood has had crew chief Dean “Guido” Antonelli as her crew chief since she began the Funny Car licensing process in 2006 and nearly the same crew along the way to her current championship run.

She’s currently fourth in the championship standings and the leading driver for the John Force Racing team.

“The first year was all about learning all of our jobs,” Force Hood explained. “Each guy had to learn what they do on the car, get it fine-tuned and learn how to do it quickly between rounds. That’s not an easy thing to do, especially when you know mistakes are made, and you learn from those mistakes, but that’s all part of it. I think that was our first year. Our second year was kind of fine tuning that. Fortunately, we had the same group of guys; only one or two guys were different, so that really makes a big difference in the fact that that you know it’s the same basic group, they’ve built on what they’ve learned the first year.

“The second year we were still working on those same things, and this year I think Ron [Douglas] and Guido have really pushed the guys to remember that it’s all in the details. It’s not just doing the job but how perfect you can do it, and double-checking everything. That makes a big difference.”
The job turnover on Force Hood’s team has been minimal. Prior to this season, she only added two new crew members, one of which came over from her dad’s team.

“It makes a big difference when you get someone new,” Force Hood explained. “Even if they’ve come from a different team they’re going to learn things differently or have a different way of doing things. You have to re-teach them. You have to get them use to our routine and working with this group of people, and that takes some time to get those kinks worked out. Fortunately, our one new guy Matt came from Dad’s team, so we learn from that team, too, and his routine probably didn’t change very much; he knows how it goes.

“Our other new guy came from Del Worsham’s team, so they both had a lot of experience. We weren’t trying to teach a brand-new person, we were just fine-tuning them to how our team runs. I really think you see how good my guys get along and I think it makes a difference when something does go wrong, or if there’s a mistake, even if they’re not quite sure.

“I don’t know that much about working on cars, but I know it can be nerve-wracking if you think that you’ve made a mistake. Do you say something or do you not? These guys are so comfortable with Guido and Ron they’ll go and they’ll tell them. It totally makes me more comfortable because I know they’re willing to take getting into trouble to make sure the car’s right. I never think they would let anything pass on accident with this car, and I hope that all teams run like that, but you never know how teams run. You’re in a rush and suddenly you realize something, same thing with me and my car. I’m always worried and I double-check a hundred times, because I’m like, ‘What if I go up to start my car and one of my arm restraints isn’t hooked in? What do I do?’ You know you can’t make that pass when you know there’s something that is really wrong, or my helmet is not strapped on right or whatever it is, so to keep that from happening I check everything about 10 times.

“That’s the same with the guys, it’s not about getting me in trouble, it’s about giving me a safe car and it’s really about making Ron and Guido proud of them. They’re very close with them, and they really want them to be happy with them and I think it makes our guys double-check more than maybe people on other teams who don’t care so much what there crew chiefs think or are scared of their crew chief. That’s not the way we are in our camp. We’re all very close. If there is a mistake, whether it’s me on my part, or the crew, we’re willing for the good of the team to go up announce the mistake and make the right change. Luckily it doesn’t happen very often and I think it’s because we all double-check everything so much. At least we know we’re all on the same page. We know what we need to do and if something’s not right, we know we need to fix it.”

Force Hood has earned two national event wins in seven finals rounds. She qualified No. 1 three times in 2007, most recently at the NHRA Southern Nationals in Commerce, Ga.

Three years into her nitro driving career Force Hood knows the devil is in the details.

“A lot of rounds are lost just because of something so simple and easy, that it was a mistake that someone didn’t double-check something,” Force Hood said. “Our team rarely has those issues. If we lose a round it’s because the temperature has changed or maybe I’ve got it out of the groove. It’s never something with the crew guys, or a technicality that the crew guys made a mistake on, and that just gives us so much more of a chance, I think, at doing well when you don’t have to think about those little minor details. They’ve really worked hard to do that and they actually double-check each other. I actually see it when we go to warm up, one guy checks something, the other guy checks the same thing and that makes a big difference I believe. It all adds up.”

For Force Hood, it all adds up to success and confidence – even when she’s joking around.

Case in point, at the NHRA Southern Nationals, her dad jokingly jawed to his crew chief Austin Coil that he wanted to run a 4.10. He ran a 4.10.

She piped up, if calling a shot was that easy, she’d take a 4.07. Force Hood ran a 4.07.

“Probably 90 percent of the performance of the car is the preparation,” Antonelli said. “A split second makes a difference of winning or losing, and so if the car isn’t prepared the same every time within the clutch setup within thousandths of an inch or the compression within thousandths of an inch or something like that, the kits aren’t working properly, all that affects a performance and it doesn’t matter how great a tuner you are if the car isn’t safe every time you’re making changes for the variation of the preparation of the car. You’re chasing your tail. I think Ron and I have the greatest group of guys that I’ve worked with in a number of years since Robert, myself, Eric Medlen and Kevin McCarthy all worked on John’s car in the early 2000s, late ’90s. It’s probably the best group of guys I’ve seen since then.”

At the end of the day having a solid daily routine works well for Force Hood and the team. Antonelli agrees.
Having a driver that believes in herself contributes a lot.

“She’s starting to believe in herself a little bit more because I can’t imagine driving one of these things, period, and having the pressure, if you get a foot out of the groove it’s going to smoke the tires, or if you’re just a flick of the eyes late on the trees you’re going to lose, things like that,” Antonelli explained. “That pressure has got to be tremendous on the driver, but she’s got it worse because her last name is Force. She’s expected to do well, and then on top of that she’s a woman so then there’s that pressure. You know really, there hasn’t been any successful woman in Funny Car; I mean, Shirley Muldowney was dominant in Top Fuel, and Melanie Troxel had a pretty good run there for a bit in Top Fuel, but in Funny Car there’s been a number who have tried and haven’t had any success, so the pressure on her from many angles is unbelievable.

“This year she’s a little more confident, so she’s a little bit more at ease with herself and she believes that when she steps on the gas she’s going to corral this thing down the groove just where it needs to be. I think she’s also got a little bit of confidence that the thing’s going to be there for her, too, so she doesn’t feel like if she’s not perfect on the tree that she doesn’t have a chance. I just think she believes in herself a little more.”

That’s what continuity will do for a driver. 

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