In the late 1970s Tom McEwen was already “The Mongoose,” a fabled character in the Funny Car category with a fan base of his own.

That’s when he met a dreamer.

McEwen remembers John Force as the guy whose car was always on fire.

“I can remember racing him at Sacramento Raceway at night,” McEwen said. “Every time he would run his car would be on fire. They’d go out in the field where the fire was and have to put it out.”

One day Force came by McEwen’s pit on a mission. He needed 10 rolls of silver tape to make an unfixable body work. McEwen didn’t see the request as an intrusion from a no-name upstart.

Force was Rudy Ruettiger, the drag strip his Notre Dame.

“He had to make one more run to get paid,” McEwen said. “He taped it up so it looked like a body even though it was all burned under it and he was able to make that last run to get some money to eat on the way home.

In the late 1970s Tom McEwen was already “The Mongoose,” a fabled character in the Funny Car category with a fan base of his own.

That’s when he met a dreamer.

McEwen remembers John Force as the guy whose car was always on fire.

“I can remember racing him at Sacramento Raceway at night,” McEwen said. “Every time he would run his car would be on fire. They’d go out in the field where the fire was and have to put it out.”

One day Force came by McEwen’s pit on a mission. He needed 10 rolls of silver tape to make an unfixable body work. McEwen didn’t see the request as an intrusion from a no-name upstart.

Force was Rudy Ruettiger, the drag strip his Notre Dame.

“He had to make one more run to get paid,” McEwen said. “He taped it up so it looked like a body even though it was all burned under it and he was able to make that last run to get some money to eat on the way home.

 “He’s had me laughing so hard on many occasions. We used to beat him like a drum. He had that determination. I think I had a little bit of that. Guys who win as much as he does don’t do it by accident. They do it because they’re good.” - Don Prudhomme

“They could do a movie on him,” McEwen added.  “They probably will someday.”

The 28th annual Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Southern Nationals, April 24-27, at Atlanta Dragway will be Force’s 500th race. Force is without doubt the most formidable Funny Car driver in NHRA history, with 14 personal NHRA POWERade world championship titles and a racing dynasty to his credit. He’s only the second driver in NHRA history to compete in 500 national events. Warren Johnson, the “Professor,” was the first. The event is the sixth of 24 in the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series.

But as humble as his beginnings were, Force was never obscure. Early on, his notorious reputation for oiling down drag strips inspired a movement to get John banned from racing, according to John Ewald, the Lions Drag Strip track photographer from 1968 to 1972.

“I remember well when he first started racing,” McEwen said. “He didn’t have any money, and was trying to gather up people who would help him. He was a little different from everybody because of his personality. He was like a stand-up comedian. He had a real drive wanting to accomplish things.”

Thirty years have passed since Force’s NHRA professional debut. In almost 1,000 round wins, he’s been beaten but undaunted; pushed and tested, but not broken.

It seems against the natural order of things for anyone other than Force himself to tell it how it was, is or should have been, at least according to him. However, if you can indeed tell the character of a man by his friends, then there are plenty of witnesses who will stand in as narrator.

They tell stories of a business genius made almost unnervingly accessible by street-smarts and a mouth that could clock a .000 light. Someone you’d love to hate for his success but find impossible to do so.

For Bernie Fedderly, Force was the would-be boss that wouldn’t stop asking until he got the answer he wanted.

By 1992, the Force-Austin Coil alliance had produced two consecutive NHRA world championships after raising Force from a career-average 15th in the point standings to top 10 finishes. Fedderly was fresh off a break-up with Larry Minor Racing and had a few offers to consider. Force had pursued him before.

Then he once again came calling. And calling.

“He wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Fedderly said. “I learned more about that later…That’s his negotiating style.”

Fedderly wasn’t sure what he could bring to a team that was already successful but Force’s enthusiasm was convincing. The three won the first race Fedderly attended. They won eight events that year, including the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis.

Then they blew the points lead and finished second on the season – the only time in an unearthly 13-year span that they did not win the championship title. Since then, Force’s worst season performance was in 2007, when he finished seventh despite enduring a year of mental and physical tests that would send a weaker driver to retirement and perhaps even permanent emotional seclusion.

Instead, Force looked up, reached out and attacked problems as fast as he could chase them with the walker he used after a grisly crash in Dallas. And that was while Force was still on a slow rebound from his grief over the death of teammate Eric Medlen six months earlier. Somehow the bulk of Force’s recuperation took only a few months and he was back for career event No. 495 in Pomona in February.

Perhaps it was his mind-over-ability attitude so prominent to those who know him that allowed for the recovery.

“It’s one of those deals where it’s never been boring (to work with him),” Fedderly said. “Force will never let things be quiet. Whenever there seems to be a lull he’ll always come up with the next project.”

Lately focus has been directed toward the car safety initiative he launched called The Eric Medlen Project. Several key changes have already resulted from the union of Force and his crew chiefs, Ford, SFI and NHRA.

At the same time, he heads the massive racing empire/marketing machine that has become John Force Racing, Inc. and spans two states with shops in motorsports-focused Southern California (Yorba Linda, Calif.) and the Indianapolis suburb of Brownsburg, Ind.

On first impression, Coil thought Force was “crazy.” During the week the two don’t often work side-by-side. It’s just as well for Coil, who focuses on the car while Force handles specialties of his own.

“He never gives up,” Coil said. “He’s got the belief if you build it they will come. It seems to be working. We’ve all got jobs.

“He certainly has a go-getter attitude. I don’t think he ever comes to me with the answer ‘we can’t do that.’ It’s more ‘I’m going to find a way.’”

That’s an inspiration for his four-car camp and its crews, including Dean “Guido” Antonelli, son of former Funny Car driver Joe Antonelli. Dean Antonelli left a career in hydraulic engineering to join JFR with his eye always trained on becoming a crew chief. He built short blocks, did body work and helped out with the oil and tires on the then one-car team, literally working his way up the team chain until he earned the title of crew chief for Force’s second daughter Ashley.

The two have put Ashley’s Castrol GTX Ford in the final round three times in two years, making this Force not only the first woman to reach a final round in Funny Car, but also the first woman to lead the NHRA POWERade point standings. Both of Force’s youngest daughters compete in the same category Ashley used to prepare for the pros.

Both Fedderly and Coil say Force makes hiring the right people a habit. Antonelli adds another trait to a long list of reasons Force is already a living sports legend.

“Dedication is the foremost piece of success,” Antonelli said. “You can’t be semi-dedicated – or when you are dedicated, you have to be dedicated 24-7 to anything in life, is pretty much what John brings. You see how much John works and never feel overwhelmed with how much you have to do when you see how much John puts in.”

Determination is the word Don “the Snake” Prudhomme also uses to describe Force. He, like Kenny Bernstein, remembers when drivers called John “Cheeseburger,” a nod to the Wendy’s restaurant sponsorship he had years ago, before signing long-term deals with backers like Castrol and the Auto Club, among many others. Like almost anyone who knows Force, Prudhomme couldn’t choose a favorite Force story. Five-hundred races is a long time to collect memories with a man like Force.

 “He’s had me laughing so hard on many occasions,” Prudhomme said. “We used to beat him like a drum. He had that determination. I think I had a little bit of that. Guys who win as much as he does don’t do it by accident. They do it because they’re good.”

There are plenty of story lines to choose from at this year’s stop in Georgia. Ashley Force leads the point standings going into the event and eyes will undoubtedly be on her brother-in-law Robert Hight, the defending event winner. Brandon Bernstein (Top Fuel), Greg Anderson (Pro Stock) and Karen Stoffer (Pro Stock Motorcycle) are the defending winners at Atlanta Dragway.