The fact that he ultimately became the greatest champion in the history of straight-line racing, perhaps the greatest in all of motor racing, was simply a bonus.

Wife Laurie, who met him when he was little more than cannon fodder for the likes of Don “the Snake” Prudhomme, Tom “the Mongoose” McEwen and Ed “the Ace” McCulloch, recalls that “he didn't get much encouragement from anyone – family, friends, anyone. A few times, I even suggested that he should quit. He had more reasons to quit than he ever did to (go on).

“For the first couple years, (his) was the worst car out there on the circuit,” said the woman who has been by his side throughout.

“His team?,” she smiled. “Well, I was a team member. What do I know about race cars? He had me packing the parachutes, backing up the car, mixing fuel. Anybody who was a friend and who was free labor, they were on the crew.”

Nevertheless, the one-time truck driver could not be dissuaded and his unwavering devotion to a sport that for 34 years has been both his vocation and avocation has paid dividends even he could not have imagined.

While other 60-somethings are content to manipulate nothing more stressful than a TV remote, Force this year is mashing the throttle on an 8,000 horsepower Castrol GTX Ford Mustang like the one that last year carried him to a category-best six wins and made him an Auto Racing All-America first team selection for the 15th time.

The first and only driver to win 100 NHRA tour events and 1,000 racing rounds, the first Funny Car champion to overcome a points deficit on the final day of the season, the first to win the title in three different decades and the oldest champion in any racing discipline, Force this year is trying to win for the first time without Austin Coil, his friend and crew chief for the last 26 seasons.

Although Mike Neff made all of the critical tuning decisions in 2010, Coil still played a major role in last year’s championship run before deciding, at season’s end, to leave the team. In his absence, Neff will rely more heavily on Bernie Fedderly for support in the new season.

The 1996 Driver of the Year, the first drag racer ever so honored, and a four-time winner of the Jerry Titus Memorial Trophy that identifies the driver receiving the greatest number of votes for the All-America team selected by the American Auto Racing Writers and Broadcasters Association, Force this year is bidding for his 16th title in 22 years; his team’s 18th in that same span.

Of course, his total dominance of straight-line racing belies his early struggles.

“Anything to get us to the next race,” he has said of his initial philosophy. “Anything” included dressing up as a tree for a promotion at an auto dealership and as the namesake for one-time sponsor “Wendy’s” hamburgers at a store appearance. He also made TV ads for Wally Thor’s School of Trucking and briefly considered joining his brother, Walker, in law enforcement before, as he tells it, “I flunked the inkblot test.”

Although he briefly attended Cerritos College after graduating from Bell Gardens High (where he quarterbacked a team that went 0-27 in three seasons), Force admitted that he “was too slow to play football (at the next level). Besides, I kept falling over until they figured out that one leg was shorter than the other (the result of the polio).”

With no license, no sponsor and, really, no clue, Force used a tax refund check and the money gleaned from an organ his mother-in-law won on a television game show to buy a Vega Funny Car from his late uncle, Gene Beaver. He then hustled a winter booking in Australia – and the rest, as they say, is history.

Once back in the states, he wanted nothing more than to compete against the Prudhommes and McCullochs of the drag racing world. In his first 65 starts, he reached the final round nine times – but never won. Fortunately for the sport, persistence finally paid off with a win at Montreal, Canada in 1987 (against McCulloch). It proved to be just a stepping stone for drag racing’s most prolific driver.

Although his Australia experience was the catalyst for his pro career, Force previously had dabbled in the sport. He bought the “Beaver Hunter” AA/Fuel altered in 1969, his first real race car, and in 1971 bought Jack Chrisman’s ill-handling, rear-engined, chain-driven, 427 cubic inch SOHC Ford-powered Mustang. That vehicle ultimately became the short-lived “Nightstalker,” a car that Irwindale Raceway starter Larry Sutton deemed so dangerous that he forbade Force to bring it back to the track.

After transforming his uncle’s “L.A. Hooker” into the original “Brute Force” Vega, Force debuted a Chevy Monza version in 1977, a car that later was reproduced by son-in-law Robert Hight and given to Force by his employees as a Christmas present.

In 1978, Force and then crew chief Steve Pleuger upgraded to the Leo’s Stereo Corvette and a year later to the Wendy’s Hamburgers Corvette that carried Force to his first two final rounds. There followed the Mountain Dew/Jolly Rancher Chevy Citation (1980-82) tuned by Henry Velasco and Larry Frazier which begat the Mountain Dew/Der Weinerschnitzel 1983 Chevy Camaro and, finally, the Bill Schultz-tuned 1984 Olds Firenza selected in one on-line poll as the “Ugliest Funny Car of all time.”

Force’s career finally began to turn in 1985 with the arrival of Coil as crew chief on a Corvette sponsored by Coca-Cola, Wendy’s and Jolly Rancher Candies. It really took off a year later when, in addition to the three aforementioned sponsors, he signed his first contract with Castrol GTX for a modest $5,000, a deal that would morph into the multi-million dollar program that today backs not one, but two championship Fords.

His ability to sign – and then retain – sponsors is the stuff of legend although his wife insists that there never was a magic formula.

“He told them, ‘I'll do car shows, I'll do cross promotions with other sponsors, I'll be at your store openings,’” Laurie recalled. “He never promised he could win a race – because he certainly couldn't back then, but he found other ways to make it work.”

Significantly, Force also remains the undisputed champion off the track where he long ago won the rabid support of millions of blue collar Americans captivated by his self-effacing charm, non-stop banter and unexpected accessibility

In his fourth decade behind the wheel, he still sells more souvenirs, conducts more interviews and signs more autographs than anyone else. In fact, his expanding impact in the world market resulted in his 2005 acceptance of AutoSport Magazine’s John Bolton Award in ceremonies in London, England, and his 2010 acceptance of the Spirit of Ford Award for career achievement in racing from Edsel Ford III.

If there was one moment that ever caused Force to question his chosen career path, it was the 2007 death of team driver Eric Medlen. In the end, it led him to create instead The Eric Medlen Project for racing safety at JFR East in Brownsburg, Ind.

“Winning is still the priority,” Force has said, “but today it goes hand-in-hand with safety. Vince Lombardi said ‘winning is everything’ and I used to go with that. It’s what I told my team. But I don’t think Lombardi ever lost a man on the playing field.”

Refusing to accept the explanation that Medlen’s accident was a one-in-a-million fluke that never again could happen, Force commissioned the first major changes to the basic Funny Car chassis in 25 years. It was work that paid immediate and unexpected dividends when he himself crashed heavily on Sept. 23, 2007, exactly six months after Medlen’s death. That 300 mph crash in Dallas, Texas, left him with injuries that required six hours of reconstructive surgery and months of rehabilitation.

Nevertheless, while he suffered broken bones in both hands and both feet, broken fingers, broken toes, severe lacerations and tendon damage, he had no head, neck or torso injuries and remarkably, five months after his crash, the sport’s biggest winner was back in a race car.

He won the O’Reilly Summer Nationals at Topeka, Kan., in 2008, but he now admits that it wasn’t until last season that he really felt up to the day-to-day grind of competing for a championship. Today, he makes no concessions to his age. He insists that he’s in “the best shape of my life. I still go to the gym every day. I owe to do that to give this team a shot at a title.”

Of course, if he never won another race or another championship, his legacy would be secure.

A 2008 inductee into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in Detroit, Force is more determined than ever to remain in the cockpit as teammate to a spectacular assembly of young drivers that includes youngest daughter Courtney, who will spend the 2011 season testing a JFR Mustang Funny Car.

“It’s all about these kids now,” he said. “I’m still going to race as hard as ever to win the championship. That won’t change. But my main job now is to (continue to) train (these young) drivers so that they won’t have to go through what I went through and to find new ways to continue to provide added value for all our sponsors.”

This year, he is applying his wide-ranging talents to a new and very special challenge.

After winning the 2010 NHRA Full Throttle Funny Car championship as crew chief on the Castrol GTX High Mileage Ford Mustang driven by his boss, John Force, Neff this year is driving and tuning the 8,000 horsepower Ford in which Force won a category-best six races last year.

His goal? To become the first in the modern era to win the Funny Car championship as both driver and crew chief. The last to do so was the late Shirl Greer in 1974 although his title was earned through points earned in a mix of both NHRA national and regional races. It wasn’t until 1984 that the current format was adopted.

“It’s good to have a chance to drive again,” Neff said. “I think everything just started coming together there (in 2009) and then we had to park the car.”

After winning for the first time as a driver in the final event of the 2009 season, Neff hung up his helmet and returned to the computer monitor last year after being assigned the task of returning Force to the dominance he enjoyed prior to his 2007 crash in Dallas, Texas.

He responded by sending his Hall of Fame boss to 11 final rounds and, ultimately, to his 15th individual championship.

Those results exceeded the expectations of everyone at John Force Racing, Inc., and now, with Force moving over to the Castrol GTX Mustang to work with crew chiefs Dean “Guido” Antonelli and Ron Douglas, Neff will wear both a hat and a helmet in his bid to secure the team’s 18th championship in the last 22 seasons.

Ironically, Neff first came to prominence as a professional crew chief in 2005 while working for the rival team of Don Schumacher. That year, he guided Gary Scelzi to a championship that ended 12 years of Funny Car dominance for Team Force. Two years later, he was enticed to JFR with the promise of a chance to drive.

Paired with crew chief John Medlen, he responded by earning the Auto Club’s Road to the Future Award as the NHRA Rookie of the Year in 2008. One season later, he became the seventh different Funny Car driver to win in a JFR Ford Mustang.

Although he also is the seventh to win Funny Car races as both driver and crew chief – joining Leonard Hughes, Ed “the Ace” McCulloch, Mark Oswald, Leroy Goldstein, Jim Dunn and Dale Emery, he was the first to do so in reverse order, prevailing FIRST as a crew chief; then as a driver.

A native of Hemet, Calif., he grew up racing dirt bikes and off-road trucks. He got his first motorcycle at age four and began riding competitively in motocross at 13. Significantly, he grew up with the sons of 1983 world championship team owner Larry Minor, with whom he raced in the off-road series.

That relationship would prove pivotal to his career because, when Minor decided to run a limited Top Fuel schedule in 1991, he hired Neff as a crew member.

After securing national sponsorship from McDonald’s, Minor offered Neff the opportunity to go racing as a full-time mechanic on the Funny Car in which Cruz Pedregon ultimately beat Force for the 1992 NHRA championship.

He worked on that car through the 1994 season. When Joe Gibbs bought the McDonald’s team from Minor in 1995, Neff moved over to the Top Fuel dragster then driven by Cory McClenathan. As a Cory Mac crew member, he celebrated 22 victories over six years and a 1997 sweep of the Western Swing.

When Gibbs opted out of the sport in 2001, Neff moved to DSR as assistant crew chief on a Funny Car driven by Whit Bazemore. He got his own car a year later, serving as crew chief to six-time former IHRA Pro Comp champion Scotty Cannon, who ultimately gave up the seat to Scelzi. In four-and-a-half years, he and Scelzi went to 18 final rounds together and won 11 times

Although he played baseball and football and wrestled while a high school student, Neff’s passion was riding motorcycles and, later, working on off-road vehicles. It was while working on off-road trucks at night at Minor’s shop that he learned to weld and fabricate, skills that would serve him well as a mechanic and, later, crew chief.

“I was always the outdoors type – camping, water skiing, all that stuff,” he said of his childhood. “I was always competitive. The cool thing for me, growing up, was we had a high school motocross team and we competed every Friday night against other schools (at a track) in Corona.

“We’d race against Riverside, Corona, Norco. There were probably six or seven different schools (and) our team did good. I think we won the championship about every year. I raced two classes and my twin brother (Mark) raced two. That was four motos a night.”

While Neff now lives in Fishers, Ind., near the JFR Midwest shop facility in Brownsburg, his brother still lives in Hemet where he owns a construction business and manages a prison ministry.

“He goes to the Chino prison and tries to help those guys out, tries to find them jobs and teach ‘em a trade,” Neff said. “He’s a really good dude.”

Although he came to JFR to drive, Neff thus far has made a bigger impact mechanically, helping to create simplified procedures and improved components. Working with Medlen, he helped develop the JFR in-house chassis as well as the Ford Boss 500 engine.

Fittingly, at the 2009 Auto Club Finals, he became the first driver in more than 40 years to win an NHRA tour event in a pure Ford Funny Car (Ford engine, Ford chassis, Ford body). The last to do so was Danny Ongais, who won the 1969 U.S. Nationals in a Ford Mustang Funny Car that utilized the SOHC Ford 427 for power.

“I always wanted to drive,” Neff said of his various career turns, “but it never seemed like an option. It wasn’t something you’re going to go around talking about or asking about because it just didn’t look like anything like that would be possible.”

Obviously, he was wrong. Force offered him a chance to drive as part of the Next Generation initiative that produced drivers Eric Medlen, Robert “Top Gun” Hight and Ashley Force Hood and the rest, pardon the cliche, is history.

He’s started poorly and finished well as he did in 2009 when he claimed his first Full Throttle championship by winning three of six races in the Countdown to 1 playoffs.

Conversely, he has started well and finished poorly as he did last year when, after claiming a career-high four victories during the season’s first 17 races, he failed to win a single round during the Countdown and finished eighth.

This year, the goal of the new President of John Force Racing, Inc., is to combine last year’s start with the previous season’s finish. It’s a formula that could produce the kind of domination previously enjoyed only by Force himself.

Already the first driver in any category to win multiple events in his first six pro seasons, Hight can further add to his legacy by extending that current streak which would make him just the ninth Funny Car driver to win 20 times on the NHRA pro tour.

Hight stepped out of the shadows and into the spotlight, quite literally, in 2005. Although he had no previous driving experience in any racing discipline, he reached the winners’ circle just the fourth time he was buckled into the Auto Club Ford.

He finished that first season as the winner of the Auto Club’s Road to the Future Award which designates the NHRA Rookie of the Year and he has never looked back.

Although his 2009 title run was a career-maker, Hight probably should have won the championship in 2007. That was the year that he withdrew from the race at Houston, Texas, following a testing accident that claimed the life of friend and teammate Eric Medlen. He wound up losing the championship by a mere 19 points.

“I can’t give John enough credit,” Hight said of his teammate and father-in-law, John Force. “He took a chance on a guy from northern California that had never driven anything but a Ford F-150 truck. He sold me to all the sponsors. He put me with the very best people and it’s been a dream come true.

“Now, to entrust me with what he has created here at JFR is just unbelievable,” Hight said. “He taught us and we’ll carry on and we will win more championships.”

Force may have provided the resources for racing success, but Hight insured the results. In his first six years, he started the Auto Club Ford from the front of the Funny Car pack 38 times, more often than anyone except Hall of Famers Force (134) and Kenny Bernstein (50).

After toiling in relative obscurity for 10 seasons at JFR, first as a crew member on Force’s Castrol GTX Funny Cars and later as manager of the team’s California shop facility, Hight was ready when opportunity knocked. Now, he is hoping to secure the team’s 18th series title in the last 22 seasons. It has been a rocket ride for the tenacious, but soft-spoken Californian who developed an interest in all things mechanical working with his father.

By the time he was 16, he already had restored a Plymouth Belvedere, a car that would serve as transportation to college in Sacramento, where he earned AA degrees in both business and accounting while working at Tognotti’s Speed Shop.

Upon graduation, Hight began looking for career opportunities in drag racing. After starting as a Top Fuel dragster mechanic for Roger Primm Racing, he fumbled his first opportunity with Team Force because of opposition from his family.

Fortunately, he got a second chance and took over as clutch technician on Force’s Castrol GTX hybrid midway through the 1995 season, celebrating in the winners’ circle after his first week on the job. It’s a habit that’s been hard to break.

While Hight was winning big on the racetrack, he was doing even better off it. What began as a friendship with Force’s oldest daughter, Adria, slowly blossomed into a full blown romance. The two were married in 1999 and, in 2004, Adria gave birth to a daughter, Autumn Danielle Hight, who today is her daddy’s biggest fan. Ironically, Hight’s commitment to his racing career almost ended the relationship before it began.

“She would see a light on (at the shop) and stop to talk,” he said of his wife, the Chief Financial Officer at JFR. “She asked me to do things with her, but I wouldn’t.

“I was afraid I’d get in trouble because John made a point of reminding all the crew that dating his daughters was off limits,” Hight explained. “Finally, she told (her dad) and he came over to me and said, ‘Hey, if you want to hang out with Adria, don’t worry about it. You’re not going to get in any trouble.’”

It was just the re-assurance he needed.

Although he always nurtured the dream of driving a race car, Hight never believed the opportunity would present itself. It’s a perception that changed when Force opted to give Medlen a chance to drive the Castrol SYNTEC Ford that had been vacated by Tony Pedregon after he won a championship for JFR in 2003.

Ultimately, Medlen’s driving success provided validity to Force’s “Next Generation” initiative. In fact, Hight credits Medlen, a six-time tour winner, with helping him through an exceedingly successful rookie season.

If there was a victim of Hight’s total commitment to his racing career, it was his “other life” as a marksman.

One of a small number of shooters to have achieved the Grand Slam of marksmanship – 200 straight targets at the standard 16-yard distance, 100 straight at the maximum handicap distance (27 yards) and 100 doubles (two targets at once) in the same competition – he was good enough to be considered for a berth on the U.S. Olympic team.

Although he didn’t pursue the opportunity, he has applied the sport’s hand-eye coordination and concentration skills to his driving.

“I definitely think that dealing with the pressure of shooting helped (my driving),” Hight said. “The thing that surprised me, I guess, was that the pressure in racing is a lot more intense. In shooting, if you screw up, basically the only person you hurt is yourself. But when you screw up in the race car, you’re not just letting yourself down, you’re letting down everyone else on the team. That’s real pressure.”

Like so many American youngsters, Hight grew up dreaming of a career in baseball. Although he never played professionally, his drag racing success has provided him with an opportunity to meet some of his baseball idols, notably former Los Angeles Dodgers’ manager Tommy Lasorda, and to drive a special edition Auto Club Ford that commemorated the Dodgers’ 50th anniversary in Los Angeles.

Because of the demands of that job and the fact that she and her husband Dan are expecting their first child, Force Hood is at least temporarily stepping out of the cockpit of the Castrol GTX Ford Mustang in which she set an NHRA speed record (316.38 miles per hour) just a year ago.

“I won’t be driving a race car this season,” Force Hood acknowledged, “but I will still represent Castrol, Ford, Auto Club, BrandSource and Mac Tools; I will still be involved in media, commercials and interviews; and I will definitely still be rooting on my teammates to go after that 2011 Championship.”

She also will spend time coaching youngest sister Courtney, who this year will be testing a Ford Mustang Funny Car in anticipation of a 2012 pro debut.

Among the goals of John Force Entertainment are the creation of a real-life TV show similar to “Driving Force,” the breakthrough series that aired for two years on A&E Network, and the completion of the authorized John Force biography.

Force Hood also will oversee the completion of an interactive “day at the races” children’s book she has authored, a graphic novel featuring a “superhero” version of her father and JFR-generated driver segments that will be available on the internet.

“This is a great opportunity for me to use the education my parents provided to benefit the overall John Force Racing effort,” Force Hood said. “It will be different not being in a race car because that’s been my job for the last seven years, but Dan and I are excited about starting a family and I’m excited about the projects we’re going to be developing for John Force Entertainment.”

Force Hood will work directly with Brent Travers, former producer of the “Driving Force” series, who has been hired as creative consultant within the new company.

With 16 final round appearances, 15 No. 1 starts, a national speed record, back-to-back Top 3 finishes and second team Auto Racing All-America recognition in 2009, Force Hood is stepping back while at the top of her game.

Significantly, with last year’s repeat victory at Indianapolis, which made her just the fourth Funny Car driver ever to win successive titles in the sport’s biggest race, she showed that she was more than just an occasional contender on the NHRA tour.

After an apprenticeship in sportsman racing where she won five times in Jerry Darien’s A/Fuel dragster, Ashley demonstrated in her rookie Funny Car season flashes of the form that would make her one of the most popular young stars in the sport.

Winner of the Auto Club of Southern California’s Road to the Future Award in 2007 as Rookie-of-the-Year, she became the first woman to win an NHRA Funny Car event a year later and, in 2009, became the first to lead the points during the NHRA’s Countdown to 1 playoffs (before ultimately finishing second).

Regardless of what the future holds, Ashley’s legacy will be that she forever changed the perception of Funny Car racing and, significantly, of women race car drivers. Before she turned pro, conventional wisdom suggested that the short-wheelbaseFunny Car simply was too physically challenging for a woman.

Ashley proved otherwise. Not only did she contend for the championship, she proved to be terrific in situations in which everything didn’t go according to plan.

When she crashed at Seattle in her rookie year, she was calm and calculated in her assessment of what occurred and what she would have done differently given the opportunity. It would not be the last time she was in trouble on the track. However, it would be the last time she wasn’t able to save her car.

Despite her status as a role model for young women entering the sport, Ashley never has been comfortable with her characterization as the “most successful female driver in Funny Car history.”

“Yes, I am a female driver, but I had nothing to do with that,” she said. “That was God and my parents. Besides, I had a team of men that worked on my car and it was them and me, working together, that put us in position to compete for the championship.

“Someday, if we could have an all-female team, now that would be something to talk about,” she said. “To have females as the mechanics, the tuners and the driver would be amazing (and) I think it will happen in my lifetime. There are so many girls in Jr. Drag Racing and the sportsman categories and those are the ones that (eventually) will move up to the professional level.”

With her pedigree, her Hollywood good looks and her accessibility, Ashley has enjoyed as much success off the track as on it. In 2008, she accepted the Female Athlete of the Year Award from the Los Angeles-based Jim Murray Memorial Foundation. Before that, she won AOL Sports’ inaugural “World’s Hottest Athlete” poll, beating New England Patriots’ quarterback Tom Brady in a tournament-style final.

One of the stars of Driving Force, which chronicled her development as a driver, she twice appeared on NBC-TV’s The Tonight Show with Jay Leno as well as on ABC-TV’s Good Morning, America and on the reality series Designing Spaces.

That’s pretty heady stuff for an admitted tomboy who once considered a career as a crew member, the basis for her decision to take elective courses in auto shop and welding while attending Esperanza High School where she was a varsity cheerleader.

Ashley’s “need for speed,” of course, is all in the genes. In addition to her father, who has won a record 132 NHRA tour events and 15 championships, and youngest sister Courtney, her mother Laurie is licensed to drive a Super Comp dragster and her schoolteaching sister Brittany, 24, an A/Fuel Dragster.

Surprisingly, Ashley never seriously considered a driving career herself until her father sent her to Frank Hawley’s Drag Racing school as a 16th birthday present

“I’m a typical father who always wanted his son to grow up and drive his race car,” Force said, “but I don’t have any sons. I always hoped one of my girls would have an interest – but I didn’t expect it.”

Even though she began racing out of high school, Ashley’s mother insisted that before she embarked on a full-time career, she had to earn her college degree. As a result, she spent her weekends racing and her weekdays in school, ultimately graduating from Cal State-Fullerton in 3½ years.

Considering her new position, looks like it was time well spent.

After completing a semester of study at Hunter College, the largest school in the City University of New York system, Brittany soon will graduate from Cal State-Fullerton where she majored in elementary education.

Identified by Force as his "problem child," Brittany initially eschewed a job at John Force Racing, Inc., to work instead at a pizza café, a manifestation of her independence.

Nevertheless, her "need for speed" brought her back to JFR where she races alongside her father, older sister Ashley and younger sister Courtney. Like her father, the 14-time NHRA Funny Car Champion, she is intensely competitive once she climbs into the cockpit.

"She's tough when she's in the car," Force said. "She's always done things her own way, kinda like me, but if she really wants to race, I'll do all I can to give her a chance (to succeed)."

One of the stars of the A&E Network series Driving Force, which ended a two-year run in 2007, Brittany is looking for payback this year with Courtney, who emerged victorious in two all-Force semifinals last season.

At her dad’s behest, the 22-year-old is learning the finer points of driving at 300-plus miles per hour from a teacher for whom she has the utmost respect, older sister Ashley Force Hood, the two-time Mac Tools U.S. Nationals Champion and NHRA national record holder for speed (at 316.38 miles per hour)

“She needs seat time,” acknowledged her father, who last year won his 15th series championship in a spectacular comeback season at the wheel of the Castrol GTX High Mileage Ford Mustang. “We have built a car to fit her and she’ll make test laps on Monday (at selected NHRA tour events).

“I’ve done what I can,” Force said. “It’s up to her sister to take her through the rest of it because she’s already lived it. We’ve got no plans right now. We’re just gonna let her develop at her own pace and see what happens. Ashley’s already told her that it’s a different animal from driving the BrandSource A/Fuel dragster (as she did the last two years for car owner Jerry Darien).”

Consider it the John Force Racing School of High Performance and if past graduates are any indication, Courtney eventually should have a very successful career in either the Funny Car or Top Fuel division.

“We’re keeping our options open,” her father said. “Working with Murf McKinney and the Ford engineers, we’ve been designing a three-rail dragster that uses all the safety stuff we learned with the Funny Cars.”

In addition to Ashley, who finished second in the Full Throttle World Championship standings in 2009, the JFR school also counts among its alumni the late Eric Medlen, 2009 NHRA Champion Robert “Top Gun” Hight and Mike Neff.

After winning her first race in 2009 when she claimed Top Alcohol Dragster honors at the Northwest Nationals in Seattle, Wash., and after earning runner-up honors the same year in the Auto Club Finals at Pomona, Calif., Courtney ran a limited schedule in 2010. An intensified college curriculum restricted her driving time the first half of the year; a tweaked chassis did so the last half.

Courtney already has scored off the track where she was named the Top Agent in the Fiesta Movement, a summer-long program that provided American consumers with their initial introduction to the 2011 Ford Fiesta. Ford Motor Company designated 100 “agents” nationwide who drove and talked about the Fiesta on their MySpace sites, YouTube and Twitter.

Now she’s moving up to a Ford that’s just a little faster than her Fiesta.

Along with her mother Laurie and sister Brittany, Courtney earned her license to drive competitively in the NHRA series in 2005 and has been on course to a full-time racing career ever since, first in a Super Comp dragster in which she apprenticed for three years and then in Darien’s A/Fuel Dragster.

Statuesque like her mother, she was one of the stars of Driving Force, the real-life TV series that aired for two seasons on A&E Network.

Ironically, Courtney’s current career path has closely followed that of Ashley. Both were cheerleaders at Esperanza High School (Yorba Linda, Calif.); both took elective courses in auto shop and welding; both majored in Communications while at Cal State Fullerton; and both earned their racing stripes with wins in the Top Alcohol Dragster division.

Identified early-on by her father as the most likely of his daughters to follow him into the family racing business, Courtney hasn’t disappointed.

“This is what I’ve always wanted to do,” she said, “and to have my sister Ashley and my dad teaching me makes it that much better. I’m just going to learn all I can and see where it takes me.”

The architect of a John Force Racing dynasty that has won 16 of the last 20 NHRA Funny Car championships, Coil actually was a drag racing superstar long before his driver, friend and employer won the first of his record 126 tour events.

He was a drag racing cult hero, in fact, as far back as the late 1960s when he and partners John Farkonas and Pat Minick began racing a Funny Car called the "Chi-Town Hustler" at places like Gary, Ind., and West Salem, Ohio.

"None of us had any money," Coil recalled, "so when we took the car out to race, we had to come home with some cash. The NHRA program, back in the early days, discouraged Funny Cars from participating.

"Plus, keep in mind that in the heyday of the 'Chi-Town Hustler,' if you didn't run a national event, you could run three match race dates the same weekend for $1,500 apiece. So we'd go run our booked-in deal and know we were coming home with $4,500. Back then, even at Indy, if you won, you didn't get any money – just a trophy.

"Our busiest season was probably 1970," Coil recalled, "(when) we ran 96 match race dates with one car. 'Jungle' (the late 'Jungle Jim' Liberman) ran like 142 that year, but he had three (different) cars on the circuit. He didn't personally drive all those dates. All of our dates were run by us with the same car, driven by Pat Minick."

Unfortunately for Coil and Co., as the NHRA series gained in stature, match race dates began to evaporate. So, in 1982, the "Chi-Town Hustler" came out of the closet. With Frank Hawley as driver and Coil as tuner, the "Hustler" dominated the NHRA series over three seasons, winning seven races and two championships.

By 1984, however, it became clear to Coil that without a major sponsor, it would be impossible for the "Chi-Town Hustler" to continue to compete on the NHRA tour – at least at the highest level. That was the only reason he was open to a 1984 discussion with a relatively unknown Funny Car driver named John Force.

Coil initially rebuffed those overtures but, finally, he succumbed to Force's persistence. The rest, as they say, is history. Coil came on board in 1985 and, after two get-acquainted seasons during which their collaboration failed to earn a single victory, the two claimed a breakthrough win at Montreal, Canada, in 1987 and, in 1990, won the first of their 14 NHRA championships together.

One of the sport's premier tuners long before the advent of on-board data recorders, Coil accurately anticipated the computer era and took the initiative to educate himself so that he would be ready to make the transition. Indeed, he has anticipated almost every trend by working far ahead of the pack.

"We work at it all the time," he said. "We have projects going that we know we can't finish within the next year, but we have to keep looking to the future. And you know, half the time the new projects get canceled by the (NHRA) rules committee before we even get a chance to try 'em – but we still gotta keep going to stay in front."

While the physical elements of professional drag racing have changed dramatically since Coil began racing in 1967, his philosophy has not.

"You can't start to think that anything is good enough other than total, complete domination," he said. "The only good thing about losing (is) you wind up going home with your tail between your legs saying 'I can't allow this ever to happen to me again.'"

After a miserable 2009 in which he and Force failed to win a race for the first time in 23 years, Coil has re-embraced that philosophy in his determination to make John Force Racing's 25th year with Castrol one of his most memorable.

"I feed off his energy," Coil said of Force, "but I'm able to bring him down to earth when he gets going in too many different directions. Each year he sets a higher standard for the team and then successfully motivates us to achieve our goals."

"I kind of get along with Force the way a person frequently gets along with his wife" is how Coil has characterized his odd couple relationship with the sport's winningest driver. "Like, there may be days when hollering and screaming are required, but it's not like we're thinking about leaving or anything. Our team motto is: 'it's often painful, but it's never boring.'"

A member of the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame, Coil is not yet ready to kick back and turn the reins over to Jimmy Prock, Dean Antonelli and the other "youngsters" at JFR.

"I have no plans on retiring," Coil said, "although at some point, before I'm 70, there are a couple of things I want to do that kinda interfere with the race schedule. One is a motorcycle tour of the Swiss Alps and the other is a vacation in the fall in Italy. But, in all honesty, I think a guy could fit those in between the races."

Unfortunately for the competition, Coil remains highly motivated, especially now that he has been paired with crew chief-turned-driver-turned crew chief Mike Neff, winner of the 2005 NHRA Funny Car title with driver Gary Scelzi.

"Drag racing is a lot like golf," he said. "Millions of people do it, but only a few make a real good living at it. I've been fortunate enough to be one of those few and I feel like it wouldn't take too long a period of non-motivation and you could fall right out of that situation and be one of the guys out there that are currently unemployed.

"You look around and there are some guys that have been at the top of their game who currently are not in demand. Well, I sure don't want that to happen to me even though I feel like, as long as John's alive, I've got a job for life. You still like to feel like you're worth it."

According to Coil, people are the biggest roadblock to continued success.

"To have 10 people that can work together is tough," he said. "To have 20 people that can work together is tougher (and) to have 30 people that can work together is really tough.

"Now we have more than 50 who are on the road with us on a regular basis. But we've been pretty fortunate with the guys that have come along. You lose a few crew guys every year, but that's just part of the game. We train a few more and life goes on. The key guys are still here and that's what matters."

While the Canadian Motorsports Hall of Famer again will assist Mike Neff with the tune-up on the Castrol GTX Ford, he also will continue to serve as the team’s personnel director and “quartermaster,” the man responsible for the ever-expanding parts inventories required to maintain three high-powered Ford Mustang Funny Cars.

In his spare time, he and his wife, Mary, will try to slip away for a little antique shopping, his only real escape from a world that moves at 300 miles per hour.

“Antiques are a long way from race car engines,” Fedderly said. “It’s relaxing to shop for rare items with my wife. It’s something we love doing together.”

“I plan to attend as many races as I can,” Fedderly said, “but it’s easier to take a step back knowing we have a good core group of young crew chiefs in place. Dean Antonelli, Ron Douglas, Jimmy Prock and Mike Neff. They’re all exceptional and I take a lot of pride in the fact that Austin and I helped train them.”

“Bernie’s family,” Force said. “He’s been a big part of our success, especially with the multi-car team. He’s probably not going to travel as much this year and he won’t have day-to-day responsibilities with the race car, but he’ll contribute just like he always has. He’s teaching Dan Hood the business side of the sport and he’ll still be a part of the brain trust (composed of all the JFR crew chiefs).”

Despite his versatility, it was solely for his mechanical aptitude that Fedderly originally was hired to assist Coil in a collaboration that, before Coil’s departure, had yielded 114 NHRA tour victories.

“It was obvious early-on that I had an aptitude for racing,” Fedderly recalled. “Most of my friends wanted to drive. I just wanted to make cars run fast. So I had a lot of opportunities to gain experience.”

That experience served him well, landing him in the company of Dale Armstrong, Leonard Hughes and Rahn Tobler as the only crew chiefs to have won championships in the NHRA’s top two categories. As a working crew chief, Fedderly won 135 NHRA tour events with five different drivers including Terry Capp, Gary Beck, Ed McCulloch, Cruz Pedregon and, of course, Force.

Born in Edmonton, he took automotive classes at St. Joseph’s High School and spent his weekends with other members of the Capitol City Hot Rod Association. Upon graduation, he enrolled at Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, ultimately earning a degree as an engine technician.

Not that he was immediately able to parlay that education into a racing career. In fact, his first job was as a fleet mechanic for a Canadian dairy firm “just keeping the milk trucks running.”

At about the same time, he and Capp were building a reputation for racing prowess, albeit only as hobby racers. Beginning with gas coupes and dragsters, the two moved up to Top Fuel in the ‘60s with partner Wes Van Dusen. Racing primarily in Western Canada with an occasional foray into the States, Capp and Fedderly leapt to prominence in 1980 when they won the world’s most prestigious drag race, the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis, Ind.

In three seasons as Beck’s crew chief at Larry Minor Racing, Fedderly won seven times and, during one stretch, the twosome qualified No. 1 14 times in 15 races becoming the first in history to break the 5.50 and 5.40 second barriers.

Moving over to Minor’s Funny Car operation in 1985, Fedderly and McCulloch won 12 times before McCulloch was let go early in the ‘92 season. Soon thereafter, even though he tuned rookie Pedregon to a victory at Houston, Fedderly found himself similarly unemployed. Nevertheless, a crew chief with Fedderly’s credentials was not long without work. In 1992, he signed on with Force and was part of one of the most remarkable runs in history – 10 straight championships from 1993 through 2002.

“My philosophy about racing is similar to John’s,” Fedderly said. “Never be satisfied – and always keep your mind open to change.”

One was experience gleaned from his job as a “destruction engineer” at the U-Haul Technological Center and Test Laboratory in Tucson, Ariz.. Another was the 12-year apprenticeship he served under Hall of Fame crew chiefs Austin Coil and Bernie Fedderly during Force’s complete domination of Funny Car racing.

Ten times in his 12 years as Team Leader on Force’s Funny Car, the 46-year-old celebrated a championship. As a result, when Force’s daughter, Ashley Force Hood, moved from the Top Alcohol Dragster class to Funny Car in 2007, Antonelli was the 15-time champion’s personal choice to supervise her development.

In four seasons, he and tuning partner Ron Douglas turned Force Hood from a novelty into a legitimate contender who finished second in 2009 and third a year ago.

“He earned his shot,” Force said of Antonelli. “I could have gone out there and hired anyone, but ‘Guido’ grew up in the system, he trained under the best in Austin Coil and Bernie Fedderly and he proved himself.”

After directing Ashley to Rookie-of-the-Year honors and a 10th place finish in 2007, Antonelli turned up the wick in 2009 and 2010. Not only did he help Force Hood earn back-to-back victories in the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis, Ind., he guided her to second and third place finishes each of the last two years.

As for his career at U-Haul, Antonelli said it was one of the best jobs ever.

“We’d take trucks designed to carry 2,000 pounds and fill them with 6,000 pounds of concrete,” Antonelli said. “Then (we’d) try to roll them over.”

It wasn’t so unlike his current job as crew chief to the sport’s all-time biggest winner. The challenge in both is to find the limit. What is too much weight? How much is too much clutch or too much fuel or just too much horsepower?

Under Antonelli’s tutelage, Force Hood appeared in 16 final rounds in four seasons, twice set the NHRA national speed record and started 15 races from the No. 1 qualifying position (including a category-best six races in both 2009 and 2010).

Now, he and Douglas will try to become the third different crew chief tandem to guide Force to a championship.

“We have an excellent crew,” Antonelli said. “As a result, Ron and I don’t have to worry about the preparation of the car. We’re totally confident that everything is right every time we pull up to the starting line.

“That makes (the car) a lot easier to tune,” he continued. “Not having to worry about whether the clutch pack is set right or the blower is too loose makes all the difference. We know everything is prepared right, so we’re never chasing (the tune-up). That is very positive.”

Antonelli’s biggest regret is that his friend, Eric Medlen, a JFR driver who lost his life in a 2007 testing accident, isn’t here to share he and Ashley’s success.

“Eric had been here almost as long as me,” Antonelli said, “His dream was to drive and he was one of the biggest supporters of me being a crew chief. So, not sharing (this) with him, especially now that I’m back with Force, is really disappointing. I miss him a lot.”

Although Force didn’t give him the official title until last January, Antonelli has been the de facto General Manager since the 150,000 square foot Brownsburg, Ind., shop facility opened in 2004.

“‘Guido has been with me for more than 16 years,” Force said. “He and Robert (JFR president and 2009 Funny Car Champion Robert Hight) worked together on my race car. There’s nobody I respect more, whether he’s the General Manager of The Eric Medlen Project or the crew chief on my hot rod.

“I’ve got great people. That’s how John Force Racing succeeds.”

Now, she is poised to become the first woman ever to win the NHRA Funny Car Championship and she never fails to thank her crew chiefs for the opportunity.

With 15 years of experience working with some of the most productive teams and well-known drivers in drag racing, Douglas was the anchor that Antonelli needed when he was assigned responsibility for Force Hood's development in 2007.

Although he learned the sport under the tutelage of Austin Coil and Bernie Fedderly, it was Antonelli's first turn as a crew chief after 12 years as a crew member at John Force Racing, Inc. Douglas, who had worked at Don Schumacher Racing, Doug Herbert Racing and for two-time NHRA Funny Car champion Cruz Pedregon, provided the one thing Antonelli lacked – crew chief experience.

"We just hit it off right away," Douglas said. "We are incredibly similar in a lot of our thought processes and our approaches with preparation and management styles. So, for better or worse, we got along right away."

"We both put the preparation of the car above anything," Douglas said. "We want to make sure the product is right before we take it to the starting line or worry about track temperatures. We make sure the car is prepared properly and safely – that's priority one. Then we discuss how we want to attack the racetrack."

Douglas came about his career almost by accident.

"I used to go to the races with my friends when we were in high schooland I remember leaving a race one day and I just didn't want to go home and go back to my normal job," he recalled. "I remember I really wanted to stay there and travel with a team. That's when I decided 'this is what I want to do for a living.'"

After some inquiries, he caught on with Skuza Motorsports at the end of the 1993 season. It was the perfect starting point because, as a smaller Funny Car operation, it gave Douglas the chance to do a little bit of everything.

"We only had three crew guys," he said. "I mostly maintained the cylinder heads and top end of the engine, but we all had to drive the truck, learn how to work on the body and build engines."

It was the ultimate in on-the-job training and it provided a perfect foundation for Douglas who worked briefly on Randy Anderson's Funny Car before being hired as a crewman on Schumacher Racing's Exide-backed Top Fuel dragster.

"We started with nothing," Douglas said. "We had a bare shop floor and in just a matter of weeks, we got a truck and trailer and built the whole operation."

His work at Schumacher's caught the eye of former World Champion Dick LaHaie, who hired him at Doug Herbert Racing. Working with LaHaie for six seasons as assistant crew chief provided fortuitous insomuch as he was named crew chief when LaHaie announced his retirement.

Nevertheless, having invested 10 years in the sport, Douglas felt like if he wanted to continue to advance, it would be advantageous to move to Indianapolis, which was becoming home to more and more pro teams. As a result, he relocated to Indy and went to work as crew chief for Pedregon, his last stop before landing at JFR.

"To hear Ashley's perspective on things is pretty cool," he said. "She really enjoys it (and) to hear how she describes things that are going on in the car is great. Plus, she is always really positive and upbeat; easy to work with."

"I'm glad she was the first female Funny Car winner, but that wasn't the number one objective," Douglas said. "The first objective was for this team to compete for a championship; now it's to win one."

Having won the Full Throttle Funny Car championship in 2009, Prock no longer need address questions about his inability to “win it all.” Now he can focus on fine-tuning the potent blue-and-white Auto Club Ford Mustang that he and driver Robert “Top Gun” Hight have transformed into the gold standard for Funny Car performance.

Although it uses a John Force Racing-developed Ford BOSS 500 engine for power, the 8,000 horsepower Ford has racked up numbers more worthy of rocket science. Thus its nickname, “The Prock Rocket.”

In fact, it has carried Hight to the quickest times in Funny Car history – 4.636 seconds at the quarter mile distance and 4.005 seconds at 1,000 feet on the way to a mind-boggling 18 victories and 38 No. 1 starts.

Prock’s championship breakthrough came, surprisingly enough, in a season in which he struggled more than he has in any other in his career.

Trying to work through mechanical issues resulting from yet another detour from conventional wisdom, he almost didn’t get his car into the playoffs. Once he did, it was lights out. Hight won three of six Countdown races to become the first driver in any category to win from the No. 10 starting position.

Before claiming the 2009 Full Throttle title, Prock twice had lost championships by less than one racing round. On both occasions, the difference-maker was a race not run. He finished second with Top Fuel driver Cory McClenathan in 1992, losing the title by nine points when the team opted NOT to attend a race in Montreal, Canada.

In 2007, Prock and Hight were second by 19 points in a season in which they withdrew from one race in the wake of teammate Eric Medlen’s fatal testing accident.

Even before he won the title, Prock already was one of the most respected tuners in the sport; his cars among the most feared.

Despite his reputation for “all-or-nothing” performance, the soft-spoken Prock has shown remarkable consistency since he accepted his first crew chief job in 1991. In 20 professional seasons, he never has failed to put a driver in the Top 10. Furthermore, he has won multiple tour events for 15 straight years including three or more in each his last five campaigns with Hight and the Auto Club.

In fact, since his arrival at JFR in 2001, Prock has fostered a reputation for winning big stakes races based largely on his success in the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis., Ind., drag racing’s equivalent of NASCAR’s Daytona 500. He first won that race in 2004 with driver Gary Densham and has put Hight in the finals four of the last five years with wins in 2006 and 2008.

The current partnership works so well because, as a former crewman, Hight can communicate with Prock on a purely mechanical level better than any of his previous drivers. The downside was supposed to have been that Hight never before had driven competitively, a shortcoming that obviously was greatly overstated.

Not that Prock’s success should surprise anyone. He started going to the races with his dad, Tom, when he was only 11, but it wasn’t until the family moved to California that he decided to make his career in the sport. Working with veteran Ronnie Swearingen, he helped put independent Funny Car driver John Martin in two finals before a 1989 bout with diabetes almost ended his career – and his life.

“I didn’t know what I had and we just kept going,” Prock recalled. “I just kept getting sicker and finally I went to the doctor. We were in Phoenix. I really couldn’t even function. When I came home, the doctor looked at me and just put me right in the hospital. They put IVs right in me. They said I was about ready to go into a coma.”

Today, he manages the situation through diet and insulin shots. Once his health stabilized, Prock went to work with Dick LaHaie, from whom he learned the dragster business, and in 1991 he hooked up with Cory Mac. When sponsorship became a problem for McClenathan, Prock moved to Joe Amato’s where he won 18 races in five-and-a-half years.

Now that he’s back working his magic on a high-powered Funny Car, the only people who see the humor are Hight and car owner John Force.

"Brad Anderson (a respected engine builder) once asked me if I ever thought someone else would pay me to drive my car," Darien recalled. "I told him no. I figured that when I couldn't drive it anymore, I'd have to sell everything and quit."

Three decades down the road, Darien not only remains a major player in the Top Alcohol Dragster division in which his cars have won 20 NHRA tour events, he also is credited with helping develop an entire generation of new driving stars by putting them in his race cars for the ultimate in on-the-job training.

His alumni lineup includes four-time NHRA champion Gary Scelzi, Ashley Force Hood, Morgan Lucas, Brandon Bernstein, Frank Pedregon, Melanie Troxel and Steve Faria. His current students in the Darient School of High Performance are Courtney and Brittany Force, youngest daughters of 14-time NHRA Champion John Force.

"I think if a trophy was given to somebody who has really helped the sport, it ought to go to Darien and Meadows," Force has said, "(because) they've given so many young kids the opportunity. When you step up beyond Jr. Dragster and Super Comp, it's big money just to learn and guys like Darien give these kids a chance."

"It's kind of cool that I can continue to do this," Darien admitted, "but I get an awful lot of credit for stuff that I didn't do. Basically, all I do is provide a car in which these kids can develop their skills. Helping them to fulfill a dream is what makes it worthwhile. It's a good feeling when you help somebody succeed whether it's in the classroom or on the racetrack.

Owner of Specialty Fasteners, Inc., in Azusa, Calif., the 63-year-old Darien is the antithesis of the old adage "those who can, do; those who can't, teach."

For 15 seasons, Darien both prepared and drove his own dragsters at races close enough to home that he could be back in class on Monday. A four-time finalist at the national event level, he enjoyed his best season as a driver in 1981 when he won the Winternationals at Pomona, Calif., and the Top Alcohol Dragster championship in the region that includes California.

"When it go to the point where I couldn't do everything – buy parts, install parts, tune, tow and drive, I got together with Ken in a partnership deal and put Larry Sutton in the car," Darien recalled. "I was going to start driving again (midway through the 1995 season) when Sceliz called.

"We got to talking and he said, 'you know, I wouldn't mind driving that dragster of yours.' And I said, 'well, I wouldn't mind letting you."

And so it began. Scelzi drove the Darien and Meadows dragster in 1995 and 1996, got a ride in Alan Johnson's Winston Top Fuel dragster in 1997 and won professional championships in 1997, 1998, 2000 and 2005.

While Scelzi's apprenticeship established Darien's reputation, the former teacher deflects much of the credit.

"Basically, all I did was provide Gary with a place to show the rest of the world what he could do," Darien said. "He learned a lot from me but by no means did I turn him into a world champion. He already was a good driver."

Darien's latest works-in-progress, Brittany and Courtney Force, required a little more attention, moving up as they did from 160 mile-an-hour Super Comp dragsters to BrandSource-backed A/Fuel cars that accelerate well beyond 275 mph. It's the same career path followed by older sister Ashley who won five times for Darien and Meadows from 2004 through 2006.