John Force has acquired more than just a primary sponsor for his Funny Car for the majority of next season’s races. He has gained peace of mind.

Winding down what he called “the toughest year in my career,” the 16-time champion announced Peak Antifreeze and Coolant and the BlueDEF brands from the automotive aftermarket company Old World Industries as his new primary sponsor Saturday afternoon at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The burden of replacing longtime marketing partner Castrol and manufacturer Ford had just gotten incredibly lighter.

John Force has acquired more than just a primary sponsor for his Funny Car for the majority of next season’s races. He has gained peace of mind.

Winding down what he called “the toughest year in my career,” the 16-time champion announced Peak Antifreeze and Coolant and the BlueDEF brands from the automotive aftermarket company Old World Industries as his new primary sponsor Saturday afternoon at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The burden of replacing longtime marketing partner Castrol and manufacturer Ford had just gotten incredibly lighter.

The Peak deal, a signal that not only John Force Racing but all of NHRA drag racing still is relevant in the marketplace, covers just a little more than half of the 24 races on the 2015 schedule. However, it is for five years.

Force said PPG has bought the rights to “some” (unspecified number of) additional races. Then he gave a cryptic message about another, yet-unnamed sponsor. “I’m getting into the milk business,” he said. “A little teaser there. I’ll be milking cows. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

He said more announcements about the remainder of his sponsorship needs for his Funny Car and for daughter Brittany Force’s Top Fuel dragster will come at this week’s SEMA Show here at Las Vegas, as well as throughout the off-season and even at next year’s season-opener at Pomona, Calif.   

Daughter Courtney Force’s and son-in-law Robert Hight’s Funny Cars have secure funding from Traxxas and Auto Club of Southern California, respectively. And JFR still has strong alliances with Freightliner, Mac Tools, Brand Source, and other associate sponsors.

“I want to clarify: I haven’t reached my peak,” the 65-year-old legend of the sport said, no pun intended. “I know that sounds funny, but I’m just getting ready to start. I said on the NHRA conference call the other day that you’d have a new John Force here. And finally I can get it out to my teams. You have a John Force that’s an owner and a John Force that fights every minute of his life.”

Saturday's announcement seemed to spur on Force, eating the pain of watching Matt Hagan steal his points lead at the previous race and healing the gut-punch of crew chief Jimmy Prock leaving to join the organization for which Hagan drives.

“I race from the heart,” Force said. “I’ve got a burning desire to be out there on that racetrack. It’s where I live. And starting right here with Brian [Emrich, Old World Industries chief marketing officer] and his brand Peak, I’m getting that opportunity – and with the new partners that will come and the old ones that will stay. Most important to me is my daughter and I and Robert Hight and Courtney, we’ll get to race. Racing is my life. And I’ll be honest: without it, I might as well jump off a bridge somewhere. This is where I want to be.

“So the new John Force you’re getting is going to be the same guy,” he said. He acknowledged that the evolving marketplace demands more than the traditional race victories and TV appearances and, in his words, “being in the newspaper.” He said the world revolves today around sales so he’s geared to be “living on the road, because I have to be with [his sponsors] to make [business-to-business] deals with these accounts so I can stay in racing. There’s no better salesman than me, because I think I’m one of the best.”

So in a sense, this appears to be less of a new deal for Force than a classic case of the philosophy that “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”    
Force unveiled what he called “the car of 2015” with its Peak branding but said, “It’ll change in the next 60 days” as he reveals which automaker will provide his car bodies. Word from the Toyota camp is that JFR will not be racing Toyotas.

Force mentioned how stressful this process has been.

“I’ve been sick for over a year, and I live with it every day. Our whole life was chasing championships. We went down a road that you would fight to make the Countdown. That was what life was all about. And this year I’ve had two NHRA Mello Yello Countdowns – one to win the championship, one to work with JMI [the Indianapolis-based agency, to find fresh funding]. It’s a job, and I’ve survived it.”

Over the roar of warming-up engines, Force apologized publicly to his crews for not clueing them in on the business developments.

“I couldn’t tell them we had deals,” he said. “They were already signed. I couldn’t tell ‘em, because stuff gets out and it ruins it all, and they got families to feed. So for being loyal to me, God bless ya.   

“Some things we can’t announce right now. We wanted to say something at Indy [during Labor Day weekend], but we just couldn’t,” he said.

The spigot is open now for the flow of announcements. John Force’s internal battery is recharged. And, like some sleight-of-hand artist in one of these Las Vegas showrooms, he is making this difficult process appear to be business as usual. 

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