In the week leading up to the third annual CompetitionPlus.com War Stories we will re-publish some of the finest moments from last two years competition. You'll hear some of the finest stories laid down in competition. The program works like this: 16 figures within the drag racing community are voted on by the readers of CompetitionPlus.com to determine who they feel could tell the best story. From that voting, an NHRA professional elimination ladder pairs the contestants and they battle it out until one is left.

Today's story comes from John Force, the 14-time Funny Car champion, winner in  last year's War Stories Showdown. This story resulted in a quarter-final victory over Shirley Muldowney.

OF SHIRLEY, MISPLACING A KID, WINNING YOUR FIRST RACE AND DRUNKEN CANADIAN MEN IN THONGS …

I called Bobby Bennett this morning and I tried my best to pull myself out of the competition. Whenever I do anything, I do it with every bit of emotion and energy I have. Sometimes the love I have for people takes away that energy. It’s hard for me to compete against my heroes.

Coming up in the sport, the names like Don “Snake” Prudhomme, Tom “Mongoose” McEwen, Don Garlits, Raymond Beadle and you guessed it Shirley Muldowney, were my heroes.

She was one of the legends I never got to race. When all the guys were trying to beat up on her, she showed the right stuff to become a champion.

I didn’t know at first I had to race Shirley in the second round.

I was sitting with my girls on Christmas day when the call came in from my PR people that I had won the first round and was to move on in competition.

I was getting myself psyched up to win the next round, just like I did against Cruz after the 1992 season.

Then they told me I had to race Shirley and that took the wind right out of my sails.

I tried to explain to Ashley and the girls that my desire to live the dream was fueled by watching my heroes. They were encouraging me to go forward because no one could tell a story like me.

I tried to tell them if we take away our legends and heroes in life, we would be lost.

I’d never beaten Prudhomme, Bernstein or Beadle for a title.

Then you add in people like Garlits and Shirley, once you beat them then you lose that drive. I’m not taking away from any of the others that I’ve beaten before, but when you get someone like Shirley, she’s special.

Racing was never about the money or fame, it was about the journey, so hero or no, its time to take the journey.

That’s when I explained to Ashley about the week leading into my first national event win – 1987 in Montreal, Canada and that’s where my story begins.

I was just a bridesmaid. Nine final rounds and I just couldn’t win a race.

I got up the morning we were to leave for Montreal with the feeling, I’m gonna lose.

I knew a great individual named Robert Goodwin and he told me my problem. He said I didn’t have the eye of the tiger. He told me I didn’t know how to win because I was too busy passing out resumes on the burnout.

He let me know that I could sell sponsorships and make everyone happy, but that didn’t make me a winner.

I was mad at Goodwin because he had no idea how hard I worked on a daily basis. He didn’t know what it was like not to be able to pay your bills. He didn’t know what it was like to have someone to come and repo your race trailer.

It was a pretty hard time for me. Laurie had a job at the time bringing in money to try and keep this family stable.

Ashley was three years old at the time.

A typical week for me at the time was trying to survive. On this day, I had a big challenge. I had a rig full of crewmen and we didn’t even have enough diesel fuel to make it to the Montreal event.

We had to spend what money we had to get t-shirts which paid for the fuel to begin with. I was between a rock and a hard place.

On this day, I was going to run around town looking for money to go racing on.

In the middle of the story my girls stop me and ask, “What does this have to do with Shirley?”

I just kept on, the first thing I had to do was go down to the dealership and I carried Ashley with me.

I had her in the back seat and she was so cute. She was bug eyed and happy to spend the day with dad. Life was good.

The team was sitting there waiting to go and the rule of thumb is that you don’t tell the team you don’t have the money. You just do what you have to do.

I went to everyone I could think of to loan me money. All day long she rode around in the back seat.

Later on in that evening, long before the days of cell phones, I had rushed home because I knew Laurie was coming home. I was waiting to get a check she was going to give me to make the trip.

I got home, and I gotta be honest, I was driving a 1977 Cadillac Coupe Deville at the time. I jumped out of the car and ran in the house hoping that Laurie had left some money for me so we could make this trip. I had gathered everything I could.

Fred Stringer had loaned us some money to make the trip, in addition to what Laurie gave me. I’m on overload, stressed out and just not thinking.

I ran back outside to get in the car and the car was gone. I thought, “What the hell? How did I get here?”

I looked around and there was no car. I figured one of the guys on the team had borrowed the car and I was in a typical John Force meltdown. I headed down the street to the truck because I could use the chase vehicle to drive around town.

I got halfway down the street and a lightning bolt hit me right in the chest.

I had to have been driving my car because Ashley was in the back seat.

That’s when I went into heart attack mode.

I went running up the street because there’s no car and no baby Ashley. Let me tell you, you can’t imagine that feeling.

I’m standing in the street yelling, running in the house and jumping on the phone. I’m screaming. I’ve called the police. The crew guys are running up the street. They grab me and we ride up and down the street looking.

I just knew someone had stolen my kid.

That was as close as I had ever come to a heart attack.

The police was there, I am being asked how in the world could I forget my kid. I tried to explain that I was on meltdown. I was trying to race and win. I wasn’t thinking.

At that point, I didn’t even want to race because I had lost what was important to me – my kid.

Laurie comes home, and tears are streaming down her face.

That’s when my Uncle Gene Beaver, the smartest man I ever met, comes into the picture.

Uncle Gene looks at me and says, “You have to go back to the basics.”

He told me to start over and go back to where I started.

I told him I had parked the car in the driveway and watched Uncle Gene walk to the end.

There was a 40-foot cliff at the end of the driveway. He called me over and I could see the front ornament of that car.

We ran down to the car and there she was sitting in the backseat with her arms waving in the air and she was just a smiling. We got her out of there and pulled the car out of the ditch.

When I saw her, I realized quickly that she was indestructible.

She had ridden in that car so many times all over town. It didn’t bother her one bit. Her thoughts were, “I was with dad and he just let me roll down a cliff, no problem.”

That was about as close as Laurie and had come to a divorce. She was hating me that day.

I got the crew together and we all headed to Montreal and all I could think about was that I had lost Ashley and I found her, whatever happened in the race would pale in comparison.

I broke into tears because I had been a moron.

I realized the reason I couldn’t win a race was pressure. I drove for two days no problem and I was telling this to the girls and Ashley looked at me and asked, “Dad, what does this have to do with Shirley and how you looked up to Shirley?”

I told her, let me continue.

I went to the finals at Montreal and I ended up against two of my heroes in the finals -- Ed McCulloch and Bernie Fedderly.

You never forget Montreal because they have a different way of dressing in the heat.

The girls are sexy and they were in those thongs. The men wore them too. Yeah I had to go there.

They stuff everything they could in there. Not a pretty sight.

I go up to race that final round and I’m thinking about the pressure that always beat me all the other times. I remember Austin Coil asking me what happened to me in the final rounds. I’d forget how to pedal and everything else.

I did the burnout. I thought to myself losing Ashley was probably the most pressure I’d face in my life. I had already had so many black eyes, what would another one be.

We both smoked the tires and I ended up pedaling better.

I just drove and never looked back. And I won. I finally won one and I got to the finish line and waited for Steve Evans to come over to interview me.

There’s no Steve Evans, no TNN and no television. In fact, I look over and all that waiting for me are two of those Canadians in those thongs holding a fire extinguisher.

I went back to Coil and started singing that song, “Is that all there is?”

I think what I had was post partum depression. It’s that thing where a woman wakes up and is depressed the day after having a baby and she doesn’t know why.

I didn’t know what to do. I had it all. I had the win, the Wally and this big old check the bank wouldn’t even cash. Even the bank didn’t trust me back in the day.

I had borrowed money from Coil. I called home and told Laurie we won, I told Ashley we won and she had no clue what I was talking about.

Later on that night, we are all crammed in the room sleeping and I’m thinking.

You know what it’s like to lay in bed at night and you have that trophy in the bed with you? You’re singing, “I beat Ed McCulloch, I beat Ed McCulloch.”

Coil yells out, “Will you shut up so we can sleep.”

But then I remembered an hour or so earlier we went to dinner, we were sitting there sharing hamburgers. You know broke when you have to share a burger. We had pooled our cash together.

We’re at this restaurant and the waiter brings over a bottle of champagne.

I looked at him and said, “I didn’t order that and I can’t pay for it.”

It cost about $15 or $20.

He pointed to a table and said, “The lady at that table sent it to you.”

I looked across the restaurant and it was none other than Shirley Muldowney.

Imagine this. You’ve heard war stories of Shirley and I witnessed one in Salt Lake City when she went toe to toe with Garlits and this was a lady who was a fighter.

She was a world champion and took the time to acknowledge a total nobody like me.

I tried to explain to Ashley, “You know why I love racing so much?”

So now you see why I love these legends and never want to go up against them. They are what my dreams are all about.

At that time, that tough lady who would fight and say things to Garlits that you can’t print, showed me a soft side. A compassionate person sent over a bottle of champagne to a “nobody” like me.

Why did she do it? She remembered that moment of her first win.

She gave me that as a means of saying, you’re poor, you’re broke and you’re pathetic but here’s a bottle of champagne to drink because today you’re a winner.

There are legends and there are heroes, she is both to me.