TyLytle, I do indeed still recall the days when John Force couldn't pick up his first "Wally" to save his life....I think that he missed out the first 12 or 13 times that he made it to the finals before he finally grabbed his first win.
In fact, a few months back, I was going through some old papers and in that stack was some National Dragster magazines from back in the mid-70's. I found a picture of John Force in there where he looked like he was about 17 years old (although he was a little bit older). Of course, Snake looked a lot younger back then, as did Big Daddy and all the rest of the group that made up every issue of National Dragster back then. For someone who is really in the big time today, John Force did indeed come up from some very humble roots.
Speaking of John Force, I'm sure that you've seen the video footage of "the day I saw Elvis at 1000 feet". I was at Memphis Motorsports Park that particular day, watching John and Cruz Pedregon racing in the semi-final round, when John's engine turned loose and the right rear slick exploded right around the 1000 foot mark on the track. The fiberglass body landed down about 300 feet across the finish line, over in the left lane (John started out in the right lane), and I didn't even realize that the chassis had continued all the way down to the top end of the strip! That was when John did a roll or two, landed on his side, and crawled out of the car and made that famous comment at the start of this paragraph. I did see the dust kick up at the top end of the strip, but I didn't realize that it was the chassis, since the top end of the strip is some 3/4 mile away from the starting line where I was at (Memphis has a very long shut down run, with the drag strip being the straightaway of a 2.5 mile road course).
I've already got my tickets rereserved for my spot, pit side, some 60 feet out from the staging lights on raceday in Memphis. I'm waiting on my annual "fix" of Nitromethane, which comes up in late September.
Drag racing is like bowling....both are addicting.
