Watch A Young John Force Score A Weird Come From Behind Round Victory At The 1979 NHRA World Finals


Watch A Young John Force Score A Weird Come From Behind Round Victory At The 1979 NHRA World Finals

Most people know John Force as the all conquering funny car driver that has amassed more national event wins and championships in NHRA competition than anyone has or probably ever will, but far less people know where he came from. John Force was a hot mess in the mid to late 1970s. He went to Australia with Gary Densham and nearly killed himself on every lap and then came back home and put in a lot of work to be a good funny car driver. He scraped and skidded his way by for years and decades before he caught fire, both literally and figuratively in a funny car. Believe it or not, Force is still second all time in the number of final rounds achieved before actually winning a race with 10. Bob Vandergriff leads the league with 14 before his first win and that is a stat no one wants to own. All that being said, this is a fantastic clip that shows Force long before his dominating days.

Filmed at the 1979 NHRA World Finals, we see Force in his Corvette funny car lined up next to the car owned by Joe Pisano and driven by Tom Ridings in the second round of eliminations. Understand that it is basically 10 years before Force will actually win an event as he powers around Ridings in the middle/top end of the track to score this victory. What makes this video even cooler is the fact that Big Mac himself is on the call.

The neatest thing here is that no one thought John Force would be any more than cannon fodder at this point in his career. He was a California guy with no money and a penchant for breaking stuff. What no one knew is that the guy driving the car wanted to be a funny car driver more than anyone in the history of planet Earth has wanted to be a funny car driver. Not winning an event for 10 years and not giving up? That’s either mental illness or incredible drive….or both.

PRESS PLAY BELOW TO SEE JOHN FORCE SCORE A COME FROM BEHIND VICTORY AT THE 1979 NHRA WORLD FINALS 


  • Share This
  • Pinterest
  • 0