NHRA

Charlotte: Ashley Force Hood preview

FORCE HO0D COMES OF AGE IN FULL THROTTLE FAST LANE Champ's Daughter Rides Wave of Momentum into Countdown CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- It took just four rounds of racing at the 55th Mac Tools U.S. Nationals only 16.604 seconds of actual work to ...

Published: Oct 2, 2009, 4:12 PM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

FORCE HO0D COMES OF AGE IN FULL THROTTLE FAST LANE
Champ's Daughter Rides Wave of Momentum into Countdown

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- It took just four rounds of racing at the 55th Mac Tools U.S. Nationals only 16.604 seconds of actual work to transform Ashley Force Hood from fresh-faced pretender to seasoned contender for what may be the NHRA's most hotly-contested Funny Car championship.

In just her third professional appearance in the world's oldest, largest, richest and most prestigious drag race, Force Hood sped to a history-making victory that sends her Castrol GTX® Ford Mustang screaming into this week's second annual Carolina Nationals on a wave of momentum.

Even before her Indy victory, the 26-year-old daughter of racing icon John Force had demonstrated that she's more than just a racing novelty.

After all, in a breakout 2009 season, no one has gone to more Funny Car finals than has the graduate of Cal State-Fullerton (seven) and no one has started more races from the top of the qualifying order (five).

Nevertheless, what made her Indy victory so significant was that, in it, she showed off the complete package. Her car performed flawlessly, as it has for most of the season, her car control skills were typically creditable and her reaction times, a rare source of criticism, were excellent.

She left the starting line first in three of four rounds and, in a semifinal victory over points leader Tony Pedregon, considered the best "leaver" in the category, the reaction time difference was a scant .006 of a second.

The upshot is that the former high school cheerleader is at the very top of her game as the tour moves onto the all-concrete surface at zMax Dragway for the start the six-race series that will determine Full Throttle World Champions in Funny Car and four other categories.

Furthermore, she said she couldn't be more comfortable entering the Countdown to One, for which she credits her Castrol GTX crew and especially crew chiefs Dean "Guido" Antonelli and Ron Douglas.

     "I can always count on my guys to stay loose and tell me jokes on the radio," she
said.  "They keep me relaxed and don't let me get too nervous.  Even when we had the
explosion and fire (last month at Reading, Pa.), they made a joke of it.  Now they call
me  Fireball Force.'

"Now the yoga and meditation starts," she joked. "I was (talking) earlier during an interview about the pressures of being in the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals and I said this is the last fun race of the season.' (This week) is when the stress begins. I love being a driver, but I'm jealous of the fans getting to watch all this go down -- because it's going to be exciting."

The former NHRA Rookie-of-the-Year likes her chances.

"If you look at all the drivers in our category, there's not one dominant person," she said, "(so) it could be anybody's championship. You wouldn't think that going up against teams that have been racing longer than I've been alive, we'd be thinking about a championship, but we know that in this sport, anything can happen. I think we have a great shot at it."

-credit: jfr

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Salem II: Eddie Sharp Racing preview

Next article Pro Road Racing Awards Banquet news 2009-09-17

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

How Kyle Larson can lose the NASCAR Cup championship at Homestead

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Martinsville II

22 min

How Kyle Larson can lose the NASCAR Cup championship at Homestead

Signatech exploring options to remain in Hypercar after Alpine/Geely deal falls through

WEC

WEC WEC

Monza

27 min

Signatech exploring options to remain in Hypercar after Alpine/Geely deal falls through

Marc Marquez on Qatar GP: 'I would rather be somewhere else'

MotoGP

MGP MotoGP

Qatar GP

42 min

Marc Marquez on Qatar GP: 'I would rather be somewhere else'

How raw talent Rafa Camara feels ahead of 'very surprising' F1 home debut in Brazil

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Sao Paulo GP

1 h

How raw talent Rafa Camara feels ahead of 'very surprising' F1 home debut in Brazil

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts