Brittany and Courtney Force step out from dad's shadow with NHRA success

The story of the Force sisters on the 2018 NHRA circuit in a nutshell: Brittany is the defending Top Fuel champion and Courtney is the Funny Car points leader. Both are the daughters of NHRA drag-racing legend John Force.

But nobody is talking about John, now 69, being on the top of the drag-racing world at this moment. The spotlight is all but on his daughters - Courtney, 30, and Brittany, 32 - so far this racing season.

Heading into this weekend’s Mile High Nationals in Colorado, Courtney held a 155-point lead in the Funny Car standings over Matt Hagan. Brittany is eighth in the Funny Car standings.

They’ll each be looking to continue their success next Sunday, July 29, when the hot rod circuit comes to Sonoma Raceway for the Sonoma Nationals.

Both have proven they’ve can win events, and one of them has beaten their dad in the finals of the sport he’s mastered - Courtney did it at Sonoma in 2014, beating her dad in Top Fuel and, in the process, passing her older sister Ashley for the most wins in Funny Car history.

“That’s honestly one of my favorite racetracks,” Courtney said of the Sonoma County drag strip. “There’s a lot of memories out there, especially that win against my dad. It was huge.”

That victory had a lot of meaning for Courtney, because it was a bit of redemption for losing to her father nine months prior in the final of the Las Vegas Nationals - that was the elder Force’s 16th NHRA title.

“That was a tough loss against my dad when he won the championship in Vegas,” she said after winning at Sonoma in 2014. “It’s one of those times you want it so bad, it was kind of a bummer. I didn’t get to really celebrate the championship with him until a day later when I was kind of over losing it, which is a bummer.”

She said the father-daughter duo don’t really reminiscence about their 2014 Sonoma Raceway showdown.

“We don’t really think about it too much,” she said. “When we get back on the track, our focus is that weekend and who we’re going to be competing against. I don’t try to pull any old memories on him to give him a hard time. I’ve learned a lot from him as a driver and he’s part of the reason why I’m having success out here … he pushes me to be better. Any time I’m able to get a win around him makes me a better driver.”

Courtney said there’s no additional pressure to compete despite leading the standings about midway through the season.

“There’s always pressure to stay up there, but it’s more feeling pretty confident in the car and the team we have right now going forward,” she said. “We still got a long way to go.”

Her sister Brittany’s first title in 2017 was followed by increased recognition on the mainstream sports scene with an ESPN ESPY award nomination for driver of the year, but her career since hasn’t come without challenges on the track.

She was injured during a hard crash in a qualifying run at Pomona in February and wasn’t immediately able to do a lot of things she normally does in everyday life, despite not missing any races - she was back on the track the next week.

“When I’m in the car, I feel great,” Brittany said. “It doesn’t affect my driving at all. But I’m still sore, I still ache. I think it’s part of the healing process. I think I’m still healing. I’m still doing everything that the physical therapist taught me to do. The hardest part was not being able to get back in the gym and not pick up where I left off. That was the tough part for me. I really had to start at the bottom and work my way up.”

Time has helped her return to a normal workout routine.

“I’m back to doing what I did before the wreck,” Brittany said. “I feel strong, I feel good. But it still aches here and there, and that’s irritating - but then again, it could have been 10 times worse.”

Brittany was nominated for an ESPY along with NASCAR’s Martin Truex Jr., Formula One’s Lewis Hamilton and IndyCar’s Josef Newgarden - with Truex taking home the honor. It was the first time she’d been nominated for an ESPY - her father’s been nominated six times.

It was an entirely new experience for Brittany, who said the closest she’s ever been to an something like the ESPYs is the NHRA’s end-of-season awards banquet, where she was among the top honorees last year.

“I’ve never done anything like that,” she said. “I was completely out of my element. I had no clue what I was doing but it was a lot of fun. It was something so different than what I’m used to.”

If success continues for both Force sisters, mainstream appearances will become the norm - and they’ll succeed their father as the face of drag racing for the foreseeable future.