The New York Yankees traded Babe Ruth to the Boston Braves, and hockey great Wayne Gretzky bounced around the NHL a bit late in his career. Budweiser dropped Kenny Bernstein after almost three decades, and STP broke its longtime ties with Richard Petty. Even strong relationships can fall apart.

Still, it was a jolt recently when first Ford, then Castrol, announced their exits from professional drag racing and synonymous client John Force Racing.

"It knocked the wind out of me," Force said. "We lost 45 percent [of JFR's income].

FLACK ON FORCE: SELLING THE LEGEND, LEGACY

Jon Flack, president of Just Marketing International (JMI) [middle of photo], shared some observations about John Force Racing, drag racing, and the corporate world in which his agency must operate to find fresh marketing partners for the NHRA Funny Car icon and his four-car team. 

"If we could get half of the things John Force says on a daily basis pushed out via social media, we're going to be entertaining to all ages, all demographics. We'll be on our way."

"Drag racing is very well positioned. It's got lots of strong female drivers. It's got lots of strong Hispanic drivers. Those are two of the biggest selling opportunities of drag racing. You can look out there and see racers who have names like yours."

"They [John Force Racing drivers] are the beachfront property of the sport." 

Of the sport: "However you touch this product -- via social media, digital, or live -- you come away sold."

"I expect awareness [of John Force] is very high."

"We're not closing any door. Winning is appealing to all brands."

"He [Force] has a lot of valuable assets in his family. Young, talented, top-notch, championship-caliber female athletes, along with his track record . . . that's compelling."

"John shows no signs of letting up anytime soon." 

"It's a likely scenario where we find a primary sponsor for Brittany that's very different from what we find for John. And there's the possibility we would find a partner that wants opportunities with both of them. We'll appeal to the legend and the 'First Family of Drag Racing.' "

"Sponsorship has evolved . . . as the economy has been a challenge. [We see] the scrutiny of returns on investments [and see a difficulty] when the average CEO of a Fortune 1000 company is in the seat only 18 months -- lots of turnover, lots of change. So they're looking for genuine partnerships."

"We wake up every single day representing the biggest brands in motorsports and trying to find more of those brands. We step in front of very sophisticated marketers and companies. We have to speak their language. We're excited to get out there and see the reaction of big brands and big companies. We're going to have a lot of fun." - Susan Wade The New York Yankees traded Babe Ruth to the Boston Braves, and hockey great Wayne Gretzky bounced around the NHL a bit late in his career. Budweiser dropped Kenny Bernstein after almost three decades, and STP broke its longtime ties with Richard Petty. Even strong relationships can fall apart.

Still, it was a jolt recently when first Ford, then Castrol, announced their exits from professional drag racing and synonymous client John Force Racing.

"It knocked the wind out of me," Force said. "We lost 45 percent [of JFR's income].

"If I just had race cars, I could park a race car. I could lay a team off. But when you've got those other 50 guys running chassis shops and paint shops, the only income is the teams that funds them and Ford," he said. "I've got a lot of work to do if I'm going to stay in business. I ain't talking a million. I ain't talking five million. I'm talking a lot."

He was reeling. He said he sat down in a corner. But to the rescue came the one person who always has been in his corner through the years, whether they're lean or lavish.
 
Wife Laurie Force, who for 30-plus years has experienced an inexplicable mix of exasperation, faith, and wonder when it comes to her unconventional husband, gave him the pep talk no one else could have delivered.

"We came from nothing," she reminded him. "We got locked out of our condo because we couldn't pay the rent because we went to Indy.

"You're either the guy I married or you're not," he said she told him. "Nothing ever bothered you before. You crawled out with broken legs and said you'd come back. You cried for a week over Eric [Medlen, who died from testing-accident injuries in March 2007] and then you woke up and said, 'I'm going into the chassis business.' Now show me that person."        
 
Son-in-law Robert Hight, announced heir to the JFR kingdom as president of the company, remembered Force's reaction to his grim news as "once he got the news, a total switch went on." And with that same confidence in the drag-racing legend that Laurie Force showed, Hight said, "We're going to come out better than before."

Force said he asked himself, "Am I just going to fold up here?"

But he turned to his strength, his family, for the answer.
 
"I look at [grandson] Jacob, playing there on the floor [at the Yorba Linda, Calif., JFR office]. He's got a new deal now: he sets the Funny Car body up on these little cars and puts them down. What do I tell [his brother] Noah? Autumn [his granddaughter] has her own Jr. Dragster. What do I tell her?"

He decided the answer to himself was "Quit your whining. You took a major hit beyond what you believed. Now get up off your ass and get a game plan. That's the John Force [everybody knows]."

So he made several decisions. He chose to hire Just Marketing International (JMI) for a multiyear contract to solicit sponsorships for himself and Top Fuel-driving daughter Brittany. (Daughter Courtney and Hight are set for awhile with renewed sponsorships with Traxxas and Auto Club of Southern California, respectively.) He hired blue-chip talent and publicity agency Rogers & Cowan to give the team mainstream exposure. And he hired Octagon Entertainment to produce and distribute the second generation of his "Driving Force" reality-TV program.
    
He said, "I can't let my kids down, because they just believe I'm magic. And I'm not. I'm fighting it, like you guys do every day, to survive.

And I've had the gravy years. I've built a huge company. Now I have to evaluate," Force said. I might have to look at certain things that in time, if the money doesn't come back, closing down to keep the value of racing. And that's why Hollywood."

Force also paid for a full-page ad in USA Today that ran last Friday, blatantly telegraphing that he's "chasing Corporate America" and, along with his racing resumé, the contact information for JMI. "A New Era Begins In 2015," the ad blares.

John Force might have lost a lot of money, but he hasn't lost his chutzpah.

Considering, for instance, that Force has his "Traveling Road Show" to preach the gospel of drag racing coast to coast, he's doing promotional programs -- which are not cheap in any way -- on his own dime. This is the kind of extensive marketing that one would think a sanctioning body, and not an individual team, should be taking on.

Watch video fo the press conference and hear the new partners John Force Racing will be working with.o why does Force feel he has to save the sport of drag racing?

"I'm saving myself, because I am addicted," Force said.

"My family knows this is all I know," he said. "But I love it. I don't golf. I don't fish. This is what I do. It's fun every day I go to work. And Robert, he's the same way. He's worse than me.

"And if I left this sport, in six months I'd be as big as Marlon Brando [was], and I'd be sitting on an island -- or a curb -- somewhere -- a curb! -- because that's the only thing I think about. It ain't a job to me. I love this sport -- and I know all the issues. [Read: problems.], " he said "And I don't fight issues. I fight to help better it. If I can bring TV in and publicity . . . [that's a way to help]."

He said, "Even though we've been working our asses off, we've got to do more."

He said he doesn't blame Ford and Castrol.

"I knew these people had their reasons. God bless 'em. I want to thank them for giving me a year and a half. But being thankful to Ford and Castrol -- they could have waited until the middle of next year and I always said, 'I need a year and a half to replace somebody like you. It's going to be hard to do.'

"So now I've got a job. And there is no option to fail, If I fail, I fail my children, I fail my grandchildren, and I fail the fans. I don't want to hear, 'Where's John Force? Did he just not care any more?' "

Oh, he cares. And he wears those cares like a millstone around his neck. But he doesn't sit and mourn. He moves, even if that means dragging the baggage with him. Force loves to latch onto words or phrases that strike his fancy. Lately he has worn out "evolve" and "change" and "extinct." Today the mantra is "crossroads." And he is speeding right through it.

"It isn't just getting race car sponsorship for Brittany and me. It's getting a manufacturer," Force said. "I have two options: I either find a manufacturer or I sell to the competition. Trust me, the meetings have been going on for weeks. I met with a lot of the major teams. I started talking to people in NASCAR and IndyCar and outlaw racing in our vicinity over there [in Brownsburg, Ind.]: 'Can I anodize for you? Can I make any parts for you? Can I paint for you?' -- to keep that ship afloat. The gravy funded Indy and four teams.

"Now I have only two teams [funded]. I'm strong financially. I own everything, my equipment. It ain't like I got a big overhead. I pay the taxes -- my rentals do that. All I got to do is buy materials and keep the payroll.

"I've got over 110 employees. I owe these people," Force said. "I went down a road, negotiated one-on-one with these people about how it was going to be -- 'Stay with me.' -- and all of a sudden I get blindsided.

"No one's to blame. They could have waited till next year, but they didn't, to be fair to me. They couldn't give me answers: 'We don't know where our budgets are' (like with Castrol). . . 'We won't know until maybe next year so you're free to go on the market.' And that's what we chose to do," he said.

"I am at a new crossroads as I look for new primary sponsors for the first time in 25 years. I have never been on the open market and I feel like hiring JMI gives me the best chance to continue to grow my company," Force said. "I have great partners in Auto Club, Traxxas, Mac Tools and Freightliner, but this is an expensive sport, and to be the best you need funding."
 
  "Ford kind of went to where they went. I know they have big investments with Penske and they're looking at the X Games and stuff. I never thought they would walk," Force said. "I won the championship in 2010. Robert won in '09. Got knocked off for a couple of years, but we're regrouping."

Said Force, "We're going to be fine, but it was shock. I sat down on the curb and said, 'What am I going to do? What do I do to help the sport grow? What do I do to grow my children's brand? What do I do for all the people who invested? If I'm going to quit -- and I'm not saying I'm the only guy out here, but I'm a big name -- and I can't make it . . . ? I've got to stay in this business or all that I put my kids through . . . Where will they go? I've got to stay.' And I want to stay, anyway, because I just love it. I'm hooked on it.

He said he began assessing everything in his operation.

"How did I get here? I know how to run a car on less money, because I came from there. I know that overhead, changing plane tickets every time on a whim . . . There's so many things you could stop to cut budgets. I know how to do that. But how do I [sustain] that operation in Indy? Close down California? We addressed it all, which way to go to survive. And those decisions will be made in the future. But financially I am strong.

"So I said, 'You got in the chassis business. That didn't break you.' Still ain't makin' no money at it, but we're putting out cars we believe are safe. But where do I put us where we can grow? Corporate America can't afford NASCAR. They say those budgets have gone 50-percent cuts," he said.

Jeff Burton's Sprint Cup Series career in limbo because of funding could be the first crack in the NASCAR fortress.
 
But Force also decided he needs to concentrate on racing and find experts to help carry the load.

"I can't do it alone. I don't have the time," he said. "The racing I've pretty much assigned to Robert. I run the other corporations with my other people. So what do I do? I've got to find an agency that can chase it every day. And I almost went with Just Marketing before. I chose to go another way, went back on my own -- did well, got Traxxas and other deals. But this time I need some real help. Let me tell you something: I'm an old carny guy.

"And Brittany, I've got to ensure her a ride," he said, never minding that he already gave her and her sisters college educations, which Brittany applied to earning a degree and teaching certification. "I've set her on fire. I've told her, 'Get up at 4 in the morning.' "

And Force, who always joked about how he has four daughters and no sons, has discovered that the ladies surrounding him are, indeed, the life-givers -- referring to sponsorship dollars being the lifeblood of motorsports.

Force said Sandy Friedman, of Rogers & Cowan, "kind of made me nervous, because he said, 'That one girl of yours doing that all-nude shoot . . . '  I said, 'Wait a minute. We aren't the Kardashians. We ain't going down that road.' And he said, 'OK. I'm going to take her places -- and the other ones, too, but the girls are the key. They want young girls.' So I don't know where it's going to go. It scares me."

But Friedman assured him the publicity. "Keep writing those checks -- we love you, but keep writing those checks. Every month you keep writing us a check and we'll keep putting you out there," Friedman said, according to Force.
                                
He said JMI boss Jon Flack told him, "Force, I like you. I like your energy. But your approach hasn't changed in 25 years. The market's different. NASCAR's cutting budgets. You can't just have one big sponsor. It doesn't work that way anymore. You may need to have five or six. You know how much work that's going to be? You get the same money you do from one, but you do six times the work.'

"Don't care," Force said, ready to go.

Reflecting on his past few weeks, Force said he was upset that the New England Patriots dropped quarterback Tim Tebow. He indicated he thinks the secular world, which doesn't understand Tebow's faith, is punishing the football player for practicing it.

"He's being tested, too," Force said. "He might have to go to Canada. But I ain't got nowhere to go. I could go back to Australia. But I'm going to stay here and win the championship. If you win, this will fix itself.

"Who knows what could come out of this? Change is good. I opens up a lot of new avenues," he said. But he was adamant that "there'll be no announcements next year," out of respect to Ford and Castrol.

"That's my story, and I'm going down swinging," Force said.

John Force always will be swinging, but odds are he won't be going down.

 

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