ALL IN THE FAMILY by Jeff Wolf
In drag
racing, it’s all about family.
Thousands of families are involved in owning or operating teams from Top Fuel
to E.T. brackets.
The Forces fall into that category.
So do the Bernsteins.
In drag
racing, it’s all about family.
Thousands of families are involved in owning or operating teams from Top Fuel
to E.T. brackets.
The Forces fall into that category.
So do the Bernsteins.
The biggest stories of the preseason involved Ashley Force’s debut in Funny Car
and six-time champion Kenny Bernstein’s return this year to the category that
made him a motorsports icon.
Ashley’s father, 14-time champion John Force, knew a year ago it was likely
that his 24-year-old daughter would be in one of his Funny Cars for this year’s
NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series season.
Bernstein, however, wasn’t certain he had a deal with Monster Energy drink
until late in the summer, and since then he’s been scurrying to put together
crew, tools, cars and transporter.
Ashley has had a proven brain trust behind her; Bernstein had the brain power
with veteran crew chief and friend Ray Alley working with Johnny West, another
proven pro, in charge of getting the new Funny Car on track.
And don’t forget Tim and Kim Richards were nearby working on Brandon
Bernstein’s Top Fueler and ready to offer assistance.
Both teams sport big,
extended families.
The Monster team was expecting to take baby-steps during the process of testing
and getting Kenny up to speed so his active Top Fuel competition license could
be upgraded to include Funny Car.
But tension began to build as those baby steps wobbled in every direction but straight throughout preseason efforts at Las Vegas Motor Speedway two weeks ago and again at Firebird International Raceway near Phoenix last weekend.
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It was unfathomable
for anyone to imagine Kenny not being able make a qualifying run in the NHRA
opener in Pomona, Calif.
That would be a
monster problem.
And that’s when his family grew even larger.
It wasn’t just Kenny’s wife, Sheryl, who always was at his side to do whatever
had to be done. Brandon, his son certainly was an ear for Kenny.
In drag racing, extended families can make for strange bedfellows.
And no other form or
racing can challenge the depth of camaraderie that drag racing enjoys.
Over the weekend at Firebird, Force sent three of his crew chiefs – Austin
Coil, Bernie Fedderly and John Medlen - to Kenny’s pits to lend a hand. Another
rival, driver Gary Scelzi, offered his input as well.
Other competitors wandered by to offer support for Bernstein.
Can you imagine a
NASCAR scenario where team owners Jack Roush, Rick Hendrick or Richard
Childress would send engineers or mechanics to one of the new Toyota teams to assist in getting them ready
for the Nextel Cup series?
If you can, then send me some of whatever you’ve been smoking.
Thankfully, drag
racing remains the pinnacle of one team helping another when it’s needed.
This story should be promoted to national news wires. It’s another example of
why drag racing is the people’s sport.
And it wasn’t like Force was helping Gary Densham, his close friend and mentor
in Force’s early years.
Force and Bernstein haven’t always seen eye to eye and have gone through
stretches when communication was limited, if there was any at all.
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But as part of the
drag strip brotherhood, help usually is offered when someone’s in trouble.
Upon finally getting his license upgrade Thursday near Phoenix Bernstein called
Force “a great champion with a great heart.”
“I am proud to be a member of the NHRA drag racing family and humbled by all
those who came to our aid,” Bernstein said.
During the first Las Vegas
testing weekend Force never missed watching Bernstein try to make a pass and
was almost as nervous as when Ashley made a pass.
It’s that extended family thing.
Four decades separate Ashley and Bernstein, and she certainly will have a
better year based on the proven caliber of her team even though the “King of
Speed” was winning national event titles before she was born and his first
championship came when she was 3.
Ashley is the biggest news this year in Funny Car and not Bernstein.
Short-lived
retirements in motorsports are no longer big news.
Recently “retired” NASCAR drivers Mark Martin and Ricky Rudd are back on track
this year in the Nextel Cup series.
For Bernstein, his return isn’t surprising. He’s longed to get back to driving
instead of just standing on the starting line when Brandon competed.
Ashley’s entry into Funny Car drew huge hits on mainstream Internet sites like
America OnLine, Google and Yahoo after her promotion officially was announced
on Jan. 16.
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Worried about Ashley, worried about Bernstein.
The most stress the older Force had to endure, however, was after Brittany
Force, John’s 20-year-old daughter, slammed the guardwall past halftrack in her
Super Comp dragster during the first test weekend. The impact knocked her out
briefly and she was transported by ambulance to a trauma center where she was
examined, scanned and released.
It was her first crash, first KO and first ride in an ambulance.
It was
the first time her dad and mom, Laurie, had to experience their worst nightmare
of having racing kids.
Fortunately John was in his motorhome at the track being interviewed and not on
the startling line when she crashed. Had he witnessed it, chances are he’d have
tried to run down the track to get to her, collapse at 330 feet and been taken
to a coronary care unit for an EKG.
It was Force’s biggest fear: getting one of his little girls hurt in a racecar.
In a hospital corridor that night, Ashley didn’t look like a professional
racer; she didn’t seem as tall and her eyes lost their twinkle while she
awaited word on the condition of one of her little sisters.
Brittany was
OK, and returned to the track on Sunday. After her dragster was thoroughly
checked out by experts including another Funny Car driver, Jack Beckman, she
got back in and made three successful hot laps.
“I’m so proud of her,” Force said the following day. “We always had to tell her
to get into the staging lanes.
“I told her she had to get in the car and take it to the starting line even if
she shut it off. She had to find out if she wanted to keep driving.
“She made a full run on her first past and kept going right back for another
run.”
She
proved she has her father’s racing DNA, or that her first concussion got her
closer to his mindset.
“She’s got it now,” he proudly said of her desire to race. “She understands
it.”
It’s family, and family shares pain as well as joy.
Jeff Wolf is a reporter for the Las Vegas Review-Journal and his weekly motor sports column is published Fridays at LVRJ.com.
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