One could easily conclude that 16-time NHRA Funny Car champion John Force is on a mission. 

Force, in Friday's lone qualifying session at the DeWalt Tools NHRA Carolina Nationals, drove his way to the provisional top spot with a 3.860 elapsed time at 332 miles per hour. If the run holds through Saturday's heat of the day sessions, it will mark the third time this season that Force has gone into Sunday as the No. 1 seeded driver. 

By his own assessment; yes, Force is on a mission. 

"I'm running out of time, if you want to know the truth," Force admitted. "I don't know what that timeframe is, but I love it. I'm healthy. I was in the gym today for two hours and I want to just race with these kids. And I just really love the racing. I love the fans and it's getting tougher because I'm getting older. 

"The driving's the easy part, you know what I mean? If you don't let stress get you, and get caught up in the Countdown, I'm going to go down and wake up and see what happens at the end. But no, I just like it. A race car don't know how old you are. I can drive this thing. Not a problem."

Force is in for the fight of his career, in the midst of a handful of drivers all capable of leaving Charlotte with the points lead. After a runner-up finish at Reading he stands atop the ever changing leaderboard. 

"It's a fight, but you got to look at the points. It's all jammed up," Force said. "There's five or six cars from Robert Hight, right up to the list. J.R. Todd and Capps, everybody within a few points, trying to win. So right now it's just a hair; we're just trying to stay in the game."

Consistency and not brute force, appears to be the old champ's trump card. 

"Qualifying will give you a few points if you can stay there," Force said. "Tomorrow's a new day and we'll be running later in the day. Just depends on track conditions. But Bruton Smith, Marcus, this track here, the Bellagio we call it, it's just an excellent racetrack. And everybody's running pretty good out here."