NASCAR Cup Series

John Force: The congenial face of drag racing

Published Jun. 9, 2010 9:47 p.m. ET

foxsports

The boy, still in diapers, didn't know John Force and didn't seem to want to, particularly after his father passed him over the rope keeping fans from the hauler.

Within seconds, the toddler's apprehension melted away within Force's welcoming arms, replaced by wide-eyed wonderment and a sense ease from the smiling man talking nonstop inches from his face.

A single connection, one of hundreds made on a typical race day by the drag racer who has become an ambassador for an entire sport through a story and a pat on the back.

``Without the fans, we're not here, we don't exist,'' Force said in between the many tangents that somehow always circle back to the original point. ``I told my daughter: you can lose a race, you can lose a sponsor, but you lose the fans it's over. You've got build them, get them to love you.''

Force certainly has done that. Has since the early days, when he wasn't a very good driver, yet always seemed to talk sponsors into backing him.

Actually, it goes back even further. To the days when he was a teamster driving the highways for a living, unable to pay for his food at the truck stops, still walking away with a full stomach because he could tell a story, get a laugh.

The gift for gab has never left.

During a recent qualifying day, drag racing's most famous driver and patriarch of its royal family spent every down moment mingling with fans.

Not just signing a few items and walking away. Wading into the crowd to pose for pictures, sign whatever and wherever, that raspy voice never stopping, the jokes and stories flowing almost stream-of-consciousnessly.

Force went out to the masses at least a half-dozen times, squeezing in face time between checking up on his Top Fuel funny car, his daughter Ashley's, son-in-law Robert Hight's, youngest daughter Courtney's Top Alcohol dragster and the day-to-day machinations of his massive race team.

Force had work to do - there's always work to do - but he couldn't break free from the fans, always circling back, leaving him with precious few seconds to scramble out to the starting line to drive or watch his family members rocket across the asphalt.

``I've got to go, but I'll be back,'' he'd say before signing a dozen more photos, hats and shirts, then repeating the process several times before actually leaving.

Force's interaction with fans almost seems compulsive, but there's nothing irrational to his ways.

This 300 mph force knows where his foundation lies. Drag racing is a niche within a niche sport, a segment of auto racing with a specific audience and a ceiling that doesn't reach nearly as high as NASCAR's.

Winning races may get the acclaim, sponsors pay the bills, but it's the fans that drive drag racing and Force believes he can't afford to lose even one.

So as he was winning his record 14 Funny Car championships, Force became the congenial face of his sport, always up for an interview, a meet-and-greet with sponsors, a handshake with a fan. He even starred with his family in a reality TV show, in part to get his name and his sport out there.

``You keep the people liking you,'' he said. ``If you get one bad apple, it grows. If you lose that one fan, you'll lose another and pretty soon you just accept losing. You can't do that. It took me 33 years to build my fan base and I ain't going to get lazy now.''

Mingling is part of the job for Force and the rest of the NHRA's drivers, the connection they need to keep the fans they have, to add new ones.

Force just happens to enjoy it, too; conversation and good company are the fuel that gets him through the day.

You can see it in the way he interacts with people, hamming it up with sponsors, pulling down the ropes around his multi-hauler complex to get closer to the fans.

When a group of Ford dealers came into his garage area, Force saw several were wearing Nike hats, so he reeled off a couple of Tiger Woods jokes, then told a story about the origins of the company's name and its trademark swoosh. He signed and posed for anyone who wanted, and everyone walked away with huge grins.

After checking on his car, he hit the ropes to network with the 10-deep swarm of fans and started talking about his daughter, Ashley, who's on the verge of becoming a bigger star than even him.

``She drives like me and talks like me. If she looked like me, she'd have it all,'' he said, drawing laughs from the throng.

Later, after the first qualifying rounds, while the crew swarms to rebuild his engine for the next session, Force is back at the ropes, whipping his Sharpie and wit around as his staff tries to keep up with all the hats he keeps pulling off his head to give out to kids and fans in wheelchairs.

``How's my hair?'' he asks sarcastically, the front of his sandy mop matted upward.

The drive and dash to the ropes continues the rest of the day.

After a camera malfunction leaves him standing in the same pose for nearly a minute: ``Can you hurry up? I could paint this picture.''

To a group of bikers with Harley Davidson jackets and tattoos: ``You guys ride in on Suzukis?''

To a kid who got a signed hat: ``I better not see that on eBay.''

Late at night, the sun long gone behind the horizon, Force still can't help himself. Wandering out of his hauler, exhausted from a long day, he sees a small group of fans near the ropes checking out his car and ambles over, giving them an experience they'll never forget by chatting with them for about five minutes.

Even then he's not done, spending another half hour or so inside the hauler talking about marriage, kids, politics, the state of drag racing while practicing starts on a mini Christmas tree.

``I always ran full throttle all day,'' Force said. ``That's how I kept my energy up and people accepted it. They used joke that he can't win a race because he's passing out resumes on the burnout or he's out here running around taking care of sponsors. But I understood what it's really all about.''