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[h=2]INSIGHT: Brittany Force gets it right[/h] Friday, 24 June 2016


Eric Johnson / Images by NHRA
It took precisely 15.048 seconds of elapsed time for Brittany Force to get it all right. After 74 NHRA meets, seven straight final rounds losses and three rounds of eliminations at one of the sport's most storied venues in Gainesville, the 29 year-old prodigal daughter of the greatest drag racer of all-time, lit the wick, and 3.772 seconds later, streaked through the traps with the first NHRA Top Fuel National victory of her career.
Four years in the making, the win not only exorcised a demon, but was full-on proof that she was among the sport's elite. Furthermore, a few weeks later, Force bookended that first triumph with another convincing win at the louder-than-bombs NHRA Four-Wide Nationals. With the help of her heavy right foot and the sage advice/wisdom/witchcraft of in-our-time Top Fuel tuning legend Alan Johnson, Ashely Force has certainly hit critical mass in the NHRA star wars. On the eve of the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals in Norwalk, Ohio, I caught up with the youngest member of the John Force Racing dynasty and got her special take on all things 1000 feet, 3.6 seconds, wrinkled asphalt and a cloud of spent nitromethane.

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Brittany, I've always wanted to ask a Top Fuel driver this question: How much of drag racing is mental?

You know, as driver, I've been out here since 2013 in the Top Fuel dragster and a big part of it is a mental game and finding that focus and leaving all the distractions behind at the starting line. It sounds easy. You pull up there and you focus on the Christmas Tree and it sounds easy, but when you have a hundred things running through your head, you're not going to be able to cut a good light and you're not going to have a good reaction time. A lot of it really is a mental game.
The hard part for me is if I go out one weekend and I have a terrible light on race day, for me, it's coming back from that because I go into the next race mindset of, 'Oh, I screwed up! I can't screw up again!' You can't go out there and try and compete like that. If you're already going into negative, you're just going to screw yourself even more and that's why I struggle with it a little bit. I struggle with being able to pull myself out that. As a driver, sometimes you just get into a funk. You know, sometimes I'll have a few weekends in a row with awesome Trees, awesome lights, awesome runs. And then you can get into a slump and it's hard to pull yourself out of it. In our sport races can be won and lost based off the driver and the reaction time. You really need to give it your all and be on your game when you go to the starting line.
Be it as an owner or a crew chief, Alan Johnson has won an astonishing eleven-NHRA Top Fuel world titles. John Force Racing brought Alan into the team to work with you in 2016. In doing so, he has talked a lot about working with you on your consistency. Can you talk about that?
Yeah, when Alan came on board we made quite a few changes. My routine that I had been doing since my rookie season in 2013, we completely changed. That was difficult for me. I knew it was going to take a few races to get comfortable with it because when you've been doing something for the last four years and then go ahead and change it all, when you pull up to the starting line you're thinking about what you have to do. It doesn't come natural. That's how it was for me the first few races, but now I'm good and set with the changes we made and my new routine and it's comfortable for me.
So, yeah, we did change it up a lot when Alan Johnson came on board, but we've had success with it and I'm going to continue to listen to what Alan and my crew chief Brian Husen have to say. This whole thing is a mental game and it's hard to find that combination of being pumped up for it, but also being relaxed and focused and eliminating distractions. There is a lot going on. It's tough to do, but when you find it, you can find it.
And Alan also put you on a workout program?
Yeah, he did. When he came on board he said, 'Are you open to me giving you a workout plan that I will believe will help you?' I said, 'Absolutely!' He put together a whole workout program. Mostly it's working out the legs. Working out is something I've always done my whole life, but for some reason I always skipped out on the leg exercise. I never really focused on that. I think it's helpful. His main reason for doing it was that he compared my reaction times to a teammate of mine, Steve Torrence. Alan works with Steve Torrence and me. He was looking at Steve's reaction times and comparing them to mine. Our reaction times are pretty close to the same, but his come off so much better because he's a man and he's a lot stronger than me and that's where his reaction times get me. We both have similar reaction times, but the way he steps on the gas is so much more powerful than then the way I do, it makes a big difference in comparing his times to mine.