All the advice Courtney Force had been receiving at the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals at Concord, N.C., was swirling around in her head Saturday.

And at 300 miles an hour, that can be distracting and downright dizzying.

Throw in the fact her team's trio of Funny Car drivers had stewed for two weeks about all of them losing in the first round of the Gatornationals. Her father hasn't won a single round all year. If the Countdown were to start right now, he wouldn’t be eligible to compete for a 17th championship. None of them has been to a final. They're eager to please their new sponsors and are trying to impress potential ones with each performance, and they are a little off their game right now. Moreover, teammate Robert Hight was fighting his way into the 16-car field Saturday from the 18th and final place among 18 entrants.

Oh, and just for fun, because of relentless rain Friday, she and the others had only two qualifying chances instead of the usual four – and had to line up in groups of four instead of the usual two.

Ai-yi-yi . . .    

"Going from the bottom and being nervous— We didn't get the two qualifying sessions yesterday, so coming into today you're already stressed out, worried, and trying to do the best you can. When I went down there and pedaled the car, got it sideways, I had so many people's words up in my head that I'm trying to make the right decision down there. But when you're going 300 [mph], you're just doing the best you can," the Traxxas Camaro driver said.

She calmed the noise, sorted out the situation, and did the best any Funny Car driver could do all day.

Although she and her dad can arm-wrestle out their competitiveness at the family dinner table later, Courtney Force replaced him as the No. 1 qualifier in that second session. She improved from last in the order to first with a 4.011-second, 312.35-mph run that commandeered the No. 1 qualifying position, besting John Force's 4.040, 309.98.
 
With that, she earned her second top-qualifying achievement in the season's four events, her first on the zMAX Dragway 1,000-foot course, and her ninth total.
 
She said jumbled in among her thoughts as she sat in her car just before her second and decisive pass was the notion that "Man, we can so easily just get knocked out of this right here." She said, "All those thoughts are racing through your head. It’s tough going into the next qualifying pass just knowing how the last one went and just hoping you can get this car down the race track. We haven't even experienced two of the other lanes."
 
It was just as well that she wasn't completely aware that she was heading for the same Lane 4 where older sister Brittany had had tire-smoking trouble before her in the Top Fuel class and so many other cars had struggled all day.
"I stayed strapped in the car through both of the oildowns. They fly through these [four-wide] runs, so I'm already getting suited and getting in the car as soon as I pull up to the lanes, but you can hear it. I'm sitting in the car, and I can hear the runs. But you don't know which lane it is. It's almost better that way, because then you get to think on your feet – which is what you need to do as a driver, anyway. If you're thinking the lane isn't good, you hit the throttle and feel something, all of a sudden you think it’s wrong. You have to drive on instinct. Yes, you are careful to watch the lanes and make those adjustments, but from a driver standpoint you can see how the other Funny Cars go."

She said co-crew chief Ron Douglas was paying attention on her behalf.

“Ron watched and made his decision, but I think knowing that we were in the field and we were safe, maybe that's why he pushed it a little bit harder," Coutrtney Force said. "The speed was down. I think we were actually dropping a hole right at the lights. I almost got on the radio and said that, and I could tell by my guys’ reactions that we made a good run. We got through the lights just in time, but the speed slowed us down just a little bit. So I'm curious to see what it actually would have run if everything was going smooth."

She credited her crew for the jump to No. 1.

"Going from zero to hero, it's really my crew chiefs and my team. It's easy to look like a hero when your car is flying down there. It's a lot easier to drive when it's flying down there, too. I think what makes a real driver is when the car does struggle," Courtney Force said, "and that’s something I'm still working on. And you can't get better unless you go through those trials. Lucky for us, we went right from 16th to 1 and I'm just proud of my team, proud of my guys. We still have a lot to work on, and I'm looking forward to race day."

Things went a little smoother for Hight in two groupings before her. He improved from 18th to fifth and settled in at seventh place. John Force qualified No. 2.

For the fourth time this season, Courtney Force has avoided meeting a John Force Racing teammate in the first round. She'll take on Dale Creasy Jr., Chad Head, and Del Worsham in her quartet. However, Hight and John Force are lumped in another Round 1 group. Two will advance in each first-round four-wide race to the semifinal round.

John Force said, "It is exciting when all your teams qualify. They spent a lot of money here to resurface the race track, and we thank Bruton and Marcus Smith for that. Having only two qualifying runs was snake-biting some people. You blow the tires off at the hit, it's tough. To finish the day one and two is great. My daughter bumped me, and I would have liked to have gotten the low E.T. for Chevrolet, but she is in a Camaro, too. The Peak guys will be happy we got it qualified so well, and so will Auto Club and Lucas Oil. I owe those companies a lot. I really wanted to see Robert get that Auto Club Camaro in the show, and he did."

Of course, some of the words bombarding her brain Saturday afternoon were her dad's.

"There are going to be guys up there that don't know the tree. Courtney and I talked about the lanes and if you smoke the tires when you only get two runs. She was upset over her first run, and I told her if she focused on that it would only hurt her. I told her to turn that switch off, and she did. She went right down the track and ran low E.T.,” he said.

It looks like she knows which words to cling to and which thoughts to discard.

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