John Force Is Recovering From Head Injury, Faces 'Long Road Ahead' Following Drag Race Crash

NHRA legend John Force, 75, has been moved from a trauma intensive care unit to a neuro intensive care unit following a fiery 300-mph drag race crash last weekend, his team announced Thursday.

Medical professionals in the neuro i.c.u. are attending focusing on head injuries he sustained on Sunday, which Force's team calls the "primary concern" of the group treating the racer.

Force's team said in a statement that the 157-time winner "faces [a] long road ahead," but the recovery so far is "a welcome positive for his family members."

Force's daughter Brittany, herself a two-time NHRA champion in the Top Fuel class, has elected not to race this weekend and will instead stay with her father. Funny car points leader and fellow John Force Racing driver Austin Prock will still compete this weekend. Force himself currently sits second in that category's championship, behind only Prock.

Force is four days removed from a harrowing 300-mph crash at Virginia Motorsports Park on Sunday, which occurred when his car's engine blew up at the end of a winning pass during elimination racing. That led to separate hits into both walls at enormous speeds. Force was alert when medical staff arrived and quickly transported to a local hospital, where he remained in the intensive care unit throughout the week.

The announcement, the third statement from John Force Racing since the crash, makes no mention of any of the specific injuries that Force sustained in the incident. The team had already previously announced that Force would not race in this weekend's NHRA events at Norwalk in Ohio.

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