Funny Car Legend John Force Finally Admits He Has NHRA Exit Strategy

Just about every year or maybe serval times each season, 74-year-old NHRA Funny Car star John Force fields a question about whether he has a timetable for retirement and what would happen to his four-car racing organization if he steps from the cockpit.

Perhaps for the first time, he offered a telltale glimpse of the future during a Thursday webinar that was part of the Race Industry Week lineup.

“I’ve got a lot of work to do, because I’m not getting any younger. But what’s cool is we’ve built a situation,” Force told moderator Joe Castello. “If any reason I went down—and I could, any day—(JFR Top Fuel driver Austin) Prock would step right into my seat. Wouldn’t be a problem. He’s driven Funny Cars. He’s driven dragsters.”

Force said Prock “can drive the hell out of a car.”

The 155-time winner seems to have no shortage of replacements.

“Robert Hight can drive anything. Brittany (his daughter and two-time Top Fuel champion Brittany Force is) licensed in Funny Car,” he said. “So we try to make our company where we can always cover our backs.”

He said he and Hight are heading to Indianapolis Tuesday, before the PRI Show opens there Thursday, “to do a regrouping, because you’ve got to have back-ups everywhere. I made some mistakes—I didn’t have a back-up for (Top Fuel crew chief Dave) Grubnic.”