John Force, the 14-time NHRA Funny Car Champion, will be featured Sunday on SPEED TV’s Wind Tunnel with Dave Despain in the first segment of a multi-part interview focusing on drag racing safety and the changes his team has made in the wake of the death of promising young driver Eric Medlen in a testing accident and a subsequent competitive crash that left Force with life-threatening injuries of his own.  The show will air at a special time – 10 p.m., Eastern.
 
The undeniable face of American drag racing for the last quarter century, Force will take Despain and SPEED viewers behind the scenes of The Eric Medlen Project, housed in his Brownsburg racing complex and explain all that has happened since Medlen lost his life in March, 2007.

John Force, the 14-time NHRA Funny Car Champion, will be featured Sunday on SPEED TV’s Wind Tunnel with Dave Despain in the first segment of a multi-part interview focusing on drag racing safety and the changes his team has made in the wake of the death of promising young driver Eric Medlen in a testing accident and a subsequent competitive crash that left Force with life-threatening injuries of his own.  The show will air at a special time – 10 p.m., Eastern.
 
The undeniable face of American drag racing for the last quarter century, Force will take Despain and SPEED viewers behind the scenes of The Eric Medlen Project, housed in his Brownsburg racing complex and explain all that has happened since Medlen lost his life in March, 2007.
 
"At the end of the day, I am not getting any younger,” Force tells Despain during an interview session at O’Reilly Raceway Park in Indianapolis, site of this week’s 55th annual Mac Tools U.S. Nationals, “but I am fit to do the job and I’ll probably go another three to five years.  That’s my plan.
 
“You’ve got to understand this: nobody has made more runs in a Fuel Funny Car than me. With all the testing going on and all this new technology and things to learn, I can really accomplish a lot more than winning a championship or winning a race – even though I want to do that, too.  But maybe I can help build the future of cars that are safe; because if one gets crashed out there, I hope I am in it so I can tell what took place and be a part of the change to build better race cars.”
 
“John Force is well named,” said Despain. “He is a force of nature, easily the most colorful, interesting and unpredictable racer I have ever interviewed. The death of his driver, Eric Medlen, who he thought of as his son, his own near-death experience in a Funny Car crash and the simultaneous emergence of his daughter (Ashley Force Hood) as Funny Car racing’s brightest new star, creates a drama rarely seen in motor sports. This interview is a window into that emotional story and the racing legend at the center of it.”

 

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