Advance Auto Parts Camaro driver Courtney Force was top qualifier seven times in 2017 but didn’t win a race. However, she had five runner-up finishes, including three in the Countdown, and improved in the playoffs from sixth to third. Even if she had won one event or more in the so-called “regular season,” it’s possible that might have done her much good. Had she converted a couple of those Countdown final-round appearances to victories, she might have given John Force Racing teammate and champion Robert Hight a fiercer challenge.

“That was my best season yet. If you think about it, the fact that we didn’t have a win and to still finish my career best, that tops the one season where I won four or five races. It’s pretty crazy to think that we had such great consistency with our team that we were able to accomplish finishing third without winning a race,” she said. “That goes to show how many finals we went to and the points we gathered from No. 1 qualifiers but really, the consistency that our team had. If we can continue with exactly what we did last year but pick up a couple of wins, who knows what can happen in 2018 for our Advance Auto Parts team?”

With veteran tuner Brian Corradi, who helped Antron Brown earn three Top Fuel crowns, Force should be a serious contender. And she has that feeling that something is about to go her way.

“It’s my seventh season, and I feel like we have a good thing.  I feel like hopefully it can be time,” she said. “Finishing third was pretty great. But I think we’re within reaching distance.”

In both nitro classes. 2017 was a year marked by dramatic swings. In the Funny Car class, Matt Hagan began the year with back-to-back victories and looked like the driver to beat, then Ron Capps got warmed up and make a dominating case for a second straight championship. In the end, it was Robert Hight, who’ll forever be remembered for his 10th-to-first run in the 2009 Countdown, who prevailed.

“You look at the category – it’s extremely competitive. You might get one driver and you say, ‘Oh man, nobody’s going to stop him – he’s on a roll.’ Then all of a sudden, somebody else is on a roll. Then it switches. And my mindset in Funny Car this [past] year kind of changed, because you know, I’ve been there where I haven’t made it in the Countdown. And I knew I wasn’t going to do that again. I did not want to have that sick feeling where I didn’t make the cut,” Force said.

“So our goal was to keep it consistent, just do our thing, not worry, and if we get a win on the way, fine – but all we need to do is continue to go rounds, get the points, and walk ourselves into the Countdown. And we did,” she said. “Then once we got in there, we were in a pretty good position. And everything changed at Indy with the points and a half. And everything switches again. And you have to be on your A Game in the Countdown. Some teams have it figured out, and some don’t. That’s part of our sport. That’s how the NHRA rules are, and you’ve just got to be aggressive and do your best and be your most consistent in the Countdown to the Championship.

“A few years ago, we won back-to-back races in the Countdown and then went out first round the rest of them and slid all the way back to sixth or seventh or something. I was doing so well. I had two great wins. But nothing matters until you get to the Countdown, and that’s where you’ve got to make it happen,” Force said. “We’ve seen Robert go from 10th to first and other drivers go from first to almost 10th. Anything can happen. That’s the moral of the story.”