If the NHRA returns to quarter-mile racing, and some tracks are not improved, then racing could transpire without the 14-time champion John Force and the members of his four-car Funny Car team. Force made the statement on the new online radio show The Race Reporters with Michael Knight.

Force was asked by CompetitionPlus.com senior editor Jon Asher, a guest on the show, about rumors that suggest he privately said that he would retire and subsequently pull his daughter Ashley Force Hood from competition if the NHRA returned to the 1320. Force denied the rumor but added two prior catastrophic accidents and insurance regulations would prevent his team from competing on a track deemed unsafe for quarter-mile competition.

Fourteen-time Champion tells The Race Reporters with Michael Knight of Insurance Regulations …

If the NHRA returns to quarter-mile racing, and some tracks are not improved, then racing could transpire without the 14-time champion John Force and the members of his four-car Funny Car team. Force made the statement on the new online radio show The Race Reporters with Michael Knight.

Force was asked by CompetitionPlus.com senior editor Jon Asher, a guest on the show, about rumors that suggest he privately said that he would retire and subsequently pull his daughter Ashley Force Hood from competition if the NHRA returned to the 1320. Force denied the rumor but added two prior catastrophic accidents and insurance regulations would prevent his team from competing on a track deemed unsafe for quarter-mile competition.

“What I told NHRA … look, if we can fix these race tracks, the ones that are too short to make them longer … if there was a way to do that … but some of the tracks, it’s impossible to change,” Force told The Race Reporters with Michael Knight. “If you can’t make all of the tracks 1320 and you have to move them [the races] somewhere else in this economy … that’s not affordable … then I can’t go back to those tracks with my daughter, my teams, for insurance reasons. Things that we don’t get into that are put on the table that people are not aware of that we don’t talk about that says when you have two catastrophics like me that you can’t go back to places where there is a problem. If NHRA got rid of some of those tracks that are too short which I don’t think they will … or they found a way to make them longer … then I would go back.”

Force then added later in his answer, “I never threatened anybody, I am just one guy in this game. I showed my insurance stuff and said, ‘This is what happens to me. I can hardly pay my rates now. If I go back to where the problem was then I’m going to get canceled and I’m not going to be able to race.”

Force spoke on several other topics including the status of his fourth Funny Car team and how his team has struggled thus far in 2009.

A variety of topics were covered in the debut of Michael Knight’s new online radio show. The show is an hour in length and while it covers other forms of motorsports, drag racing is well-represented.

Listen to the show in its entirety at:
http://www.modavox.com/voiceamerica/vepisode.aspx?aid=38880

Advertisement