A force of nature at NHRA Sonoma Nationals

ohn Force talks a lot like he drives.

His delivery isn’t a road course that meanders through gentle twists and turns. It doesn’t drone in circles like a superspeedway. Force is a drag racer, as we are reminded with the Toyota NHRA Sonoma Nationals coming to Sonoma Raceway this weekend, and his words move like his Funny Car. They hurtle off the starting line at hundreds of miles an hour and roar down the track in a straight line.

“Oh, it has its ups and downs like any family,” Force said on a recent phone call when asked about working closely with his drag-racing clan. “But you know, my wife (Laurie) has been with me practically since the beginning, wrote the initial contracts. I couldn’t even spell, you know what I mean? And helped me drive the truck and mix the fuel, helped us financially keep the thing alive.”

He then launched into a rundown of the Force daughters. Adria, 46 and the child of a previous marriage, is CFO of John Force Racing. Ashley, 33, used to drive a Funny Car and now runs the family production company. Courtney, 30, is currently second in the NHRA Mello Yello Funny Car point standings, six places ahead of her old man. And Brittany, 28, is fourth in the Top Fuel standings, having opted for a dragster over the family Funny Car tradition.

“My granddaughter Autumn’s 12, and she’s driving junior dragster,” Force continued. “And they love it. So where else would I be? You know what I mean? This is what I do. At my age, 67, IndyCar, NASCAR, I would have been done 20 years ago. At least 15 years ago. But drag racing - three, four seconds out there, you have to have good reaction. Gotta keep my body in shape. I work in the gym every other day. And I’m still staying with the kids and still loving it.”

Continuing his roll, Force veered into that morning’s media opportunity at Fisherman’s Grotto restaurant along Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco, where he had cracked crab for the TV people and chatted with race fans.

“It was unbelievable, the cameras that turned out,” Force said. “I don’t know if they come to gawk at me and laugh at me, or if they respected me. Don’t care, they came.”

They always do. This has not been a banner season for the man who will probably be remembered as the greatest drag racer in history. He finally won his first event in Denver last weekend. It was just the second time he’s made it to the final round. And yet he remains the face of NHRA.

“He’s the preferred driver at every track,” said Force’s publicity man, Elon Werner. “And if he can’t do it, they usually want Courtney or Brittany.”

NHRA is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Funny Car division, and John Force has been central to most of those years. He got his first professional Funny Car ride at a race in Australia in the winter of 1974, Force said. He made his first NHRA final round in 1979 and earned his inaugural victory at Montreal in 1987.

Since then Force has strung together 144 career wins and 16 season championships. The NHRA driver with the next-most titles is Bob Glidden (10), and he drove in the slower Pro Stock division.

“They call me a legend,” Force said. “I thought you had to be dead to be a legend.”

Not if you’re willing to devote practically every waking moment of your life to your craft. On the publicity trail, Force remains a relentless worker. Werner estimates that his driver spends 40 weeks a year on the road (Force lives in Southern California, where he grew up), and notes that he always flies commercial routes.

“He just focuses on nothing but NHRA drag racing,” said Robert Hight, who started out working on Force’s car in 1995, later married Adria Force and is now one of the circuit’s top Funny Car drivers. “There’s a lot that goes along with that - the media, the public appearances. But that’s all he thinks about 24/7. That’s how you become a champion.”

The day of the Fisherman’s Wharf appearance, Force said, he awoke at 5 a.m. for workouts and Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, which largely fuels his existence. At 10 a.m. he began his media gauntlet with an extended radio spot with Froggy 92.9 FM, Santa Rosa’s country music station.

From there, Force went right into filming a commercial spot for the Sonoma Nationals, then to the staged spectacle at the Grotto, where he broke crabs for a half-hour, then to six one-on-one interviews with local broadcast outlets, then to a long sit-down with five print journalists.

In the afternoon came a slate of phone interviews.

“We went to a NASCAR race for Chevy,” Werner recalled. “The NASCAR people said, ‘Hey, he’s got a 3½-hour break at the start, then we’d like him to sign some autographs, then he’ll have a two-hour break, then we’ve got this other thing.’ I told them, ‘That’s fine, but I need to find something to fill those gaps.’ ”

Like a sheepdog, Force would just get into mischief with that much time on his hands.

Earlier this year in Phoenix, an Associated Press writer and photographer tagged along for a “day in the life of John Force” story.

“At about 3:30 in the afternoon, the photographer asked me, ‘When is this guy gonna take a break, so I can take a break?’ ” Werner said.

For Force, who grew up poor and started in racing when the profits were modest, there simply isn’t time to take a break from selling his sport.

Yes, he has to be smarter at 67 than he was at 40 or 50. Force said he gets full medical checkups at the start and the end of each racing season. He’s in the gym regularly, and he has cut down on alcohol consumption, though he still enjoys the occasional glass of wine. He hauls around a scale-model Christmas tree, the tower of lights used to start drag races, to keep his reflexes sharp.

Anyway, Force just doesn’t feel washed up.

“I put on a fire suit and a helmet, I’m 16 years old,” he said.

Force gets asked about retirement a lot these days, though. It makes sense. He’s in a risky profession, and he’ll be 70 in less than three years. Why not call it a career? The answer is obvious to those closest to him.

“He would drive everybody crazy,” Courtney Force said. Then she paused on the other end of the phone. “Gosh, can you hear him yell in the background?”

When Courtney stopped laughing, she explained that her father lacks the ability to calm down when he’s on a rare vacation.

“No. We can’t get him to go to the beach,” she said. “When he’s back home, he’s taking calls. He kind of lives a paranoia. He wants to make sure we’re set up good, and find more and more ways to grow the sport. It’s all he thinks about.”

Courtney isn’t the only member of the family who has noticed John’s struggle with downtime.

“My wife said it’s kind of sad to see you get up on Saturday and Sunday when you have a weekend off, and you walk around like you’re lost,” Force said. “She goes, ‘Get on a plane,’ and the minute I hit that airport I knew I was home. And I’ve lived it for 40 years. I don’t have hobbies. I got two car museums. I got motorcycles, cars. Never drive ’em.”

Truth be told, Force would miss the crowds if he were to hang up his fire suit. Interaction with race fans doesn’t drain him. Just the opposite. He feeds off of their affection.

“Even when you have days when it beats you up, you ought to get down on your knees on that starting line, and thank God for all the years he’s given you,” Force said. “And you’re still alive, your kids are still healthy, and I’ve got to protect these kids. And all the other kids out there that think they know everything. And win a championship on the way. That’s my plan.”

And woe to anyone who stands in Force’s way, starting with the other Funny Car drivers in Sonoma this weekend.

You can reach staff writer Phil Barber at 521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. Follow him on Twitter: @Skinny_Post.