There was a show of force in the nitro Funny Car class at the 2016 Mile-High Nationals.

And father knew best.

Legendary John Force defeated his daughter, Courtney, on a small holeshot in the finals to get his first win in over 13 months Sunday at Bandimere Speedway in Morrison, Colo., just outside of Denver.

John clocked a 3.965-second time at 319.45 mph to defeat Courtney’s 3.963-second time at 314.75 mph.

The difference was at the starting line as the 67-year-old John had an .038 reaction time compared to Courtney’s .056 light.

“This feels real good,” said the 16-time world champion John, who was driving the Realtree PEAK Antifreeze & Coolant Chevrolet Camaro SS Funny Car. “I was runner-up here the last two years to (Jack) Beckman and Robert (Hight) and at my age, I’m young and I will fight this thing until I drop, but I have new sponsors with Peak and Realtree and Chevrolet. Chevrolet was asking if something was wrong with their car and I told them ‘No guys, it’s not your car, it’s me. I screwed up. We went and tested and I had to figure out why. Courtney was there helping and Robert was there helping me and we got through it and we came on this hill and found a little bit of magic.”

This was John’s NHRA all-time record 144th career win and first since he defeated Tommy Johnson Jr. at the New England Nationals June 14, 2015.

Additionally, this is the 29th season in which John Force has won a tour event, which is a record for all motor racing disciplines and his 22nd win during the Western Swing which concludes this year at Sonoma, Calif. (July 29-31) and Seattle (Aug. 5-7). This also is John’s 13th win in a Chevrolet. That ties him with Ron Capps and Don Prudhomme for second place in all-time Chevy Funny Car wins behind Tony Pedregon (16).

On Sunday, John’s victory parade consisted of wins over Jeff Diehl, Matt Hagan, and reigning world champion Del Worsham before he edged Courtney in the finals.

“You have to look at the whippins we’ve been getting from Schumacher and Kalitta,” John said. “Everybody on our team has won but me, and I needed this real bad. I told Courtney you’re my baby and I love you and I know you want to do good for Traxxas, but I’m giving this everything I’ve got. This was a great day to come here on God’s mountain and look like we know what we are doing. I give credit to Mike Neff who heads my program in Funny Car and young John Schaffer who runs my Funny Car with a bunch of kids and John Force Racing is back in business. They had to put a sight on the front of my car, not because it was camouflage, just because for some reason this visual in this Chevrolet is screwing me up and it aint hurting Courtney or Robert a bit.”

John acknowledged he almost didn’t make it to the final round because he got too amped up.

“I had a little anxiety attack and Brittany had to pick me up off the trailer floor,” he said. “I just got too wound up and too much heat and not enough water.”

John extended his Mile-High Nationals record to seven wins. He has now captured Mile-High Nationals titles in 1994-96, 2001, 2003, 2011 and 2016, and his latest one was historic because it was live on FOX.

“That’s pretty cool,” John said. “(Tony) Schumacher hadn’t won (in a while before Sunday), but God he’s 30 years younger than me, he’s still climbing that deal with all of his championships. You look at me, I’ve already climbed that hill I’m at the peak like this (firesuit) says and I’m hanging on. It was good for me to get a win. I made a statement about how FOX was going to fix our sport, going to fix racing and it will when it is live. I’m already getting calls from people saying that this is awesome what you’re doing. All we have to do is protect these cars. I hurt a motor, but we contained the oil and didn’t slow the show down and I think Peter Clifford and his staff, everybody worked this thing hard and it seemed like it went OK. Even God moved the clouds past us. Right Shoe? (while addressing Tony Schumacher who was in the media room). H*** even your dad (Don) was hugging me today, life’s good.”

This was the 19th time John and Courtney have met in eliminations and John has won 12 times. In the finals, John and Courtney are even at 2-2, and before Sunday the last time the two met in a final round was Sonoma in 2014, which Courtney won.

“I completely forgot I was racing her,” John said. “I needed to get rid of that because that will slow me down. Yeah, I’ve won a lot of championships and I’m going to win some more races and I’m going to win some more championships, what I’m saying I know Father Time is going to get me, but the point is this I love doing this and I work out hard and I can do this game. I don’t have nowhere to go. I’m going to keep doing this, I’m going to build this sport. We will make drag racing and NHRA great again.”