BRITTANY FORCE IS TOP FUEL’S PROVISIONAL NO. 1 AT SOUTHERN NATIONALS

Writen by Tracy Renck, photo by Roger Richards    Sat, 2019-05-04 08:00


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Brittany Force is finding her groove with her new team.

Force, who won the 2017 NHRA Mello Yello Series Top Fuel world championship, has one win and two No. 1 qualifying positions with her new crew, led by David Grubnic and Mac Savage.

Force is on her way to a third top qualifying spot this season after going to the top of the qualifying ladder with a 3.720-second elapsed time at 319.52 mph during Friday’s second qualifying session at the 39th annual Arby's NHRA Southern Nationals in Atlanta.

“That was a killer pass,” Force said. “Grubnic said it’s going to do one of two things, it’s either not going to make it or it’s going to fly, and we grabbed that No. 1 spot. It moved around there a little bit right at 800 feet, but (I) hung onto the thing to 100 feet and we stayed No. 1. I knew it was either going to blow the tires right off at the hit or it was going to get right down there and fly. It was watching the cars out ahead of me and they were moving around quite a bit down there at 800 feet. It’s a dark track. It is was hard to even see where that 1,000-foot mark is. I was looking for lights, but it is dark down there. Once I got down there, I found exactly where there 1,000-foot mark was."  

Force came to Atlanta fifth in the points standings on the strength of her win in Houston and No. 1 qualifying spots in Gainesville and Houston.

“My mindset coming into this season just builds confidence for the rest of the season to go after more wins and ultimately going after another championship with a whole new team with David Grubnic, Mac Savage and all my Advance Auto Parts boys. We already won one (race) and we were runner-up in Vegas, and we’ve had a few No. 1 qualifiers and hoping to hang on to this No. 1 qualifier going into the rest of the weekend.”

Force acknowledged she loves working with Grubnic.

“He’s awesome, but he always wants to go No. 1 and he wants to win every single race, no matter what, no matter where we are,” Force said. “You can’t win them all. We got taken out early last weekend (in Charlotte) and he wants to come out here and he wants to dominate. That’s how he has been, and I love working with him. We communicate really well. He’s been behind the wheel of one of these things and it is nice to be able to have those chats with him. He told me ‘Okay, I’m going to push really hard on it and he's got this big smile on his face. I was almost scared, and he walked away laughing. So, I knew it was going to be a good one if we could get past the Christmas tree.”

 

 
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