The PRO Superstar Shootout in Bradenton, Fla., was Force’s longest outing since a severe brain injury sustained on June 23 during the Virginia Nationals last season.
Ron Capps may have spoilt Austin Prock’s otherwise flawless week Saturday, defeating the current NHRA Funny Car champion in the final round of the second annual PRO Superstar Shootout at Florida’s Bradenton Motorsports Park.
But Prock’s boss, John Force, was overjoyed—not with Capps’ triumph, but with his supercharged cross-country journey from California. It was Force’s longest outing since his June 23 mishap at the Virginia Nationals near Richmond last season, which resulted in a severe brain injury.
But he was there for the preseason exhibition to see Prock beat predecessor Robert Hight’s official, NHRA-recognized class-best elapsed time by two-thousandths of a second, to 3.791 seconds during qualifying. He was there to support his own substitute, Jack Beckman, who served as the live-stream analyst for the first PRO Superstar Shootout in February.
And he watched daughter Brittany make what she called “some killer and consistent passes” in testing her Top Fuel dragster, qualify No. 3, and take out Doug Kalitta to declare that her team is “way ahead of ourselves from where we were last season.”
It all made John Force declare, “To tell you the truth, this is the first time since Richmond I really felt alive again. We didn’t win, but I was excited just to be where I need to be, running my teams and supporting Cornwell, PEAK, Monster, HendrickCars.com and all our other partners. I can’t wait to get to Gainesville [for the March 7-9 season-starting Gatornationals].
“My wife, Laurie, told me I needed to get back in the game,” the 157-time winner and 16-time champion said. “And being here in Bradenton was just good for my heart. Watching everybody work, watching the cars and the teams, and seeing old friends like Capps, it was just special.”
