Trailblazing Triumph: Ashley Force's Historic NHRA Victory

On April twenty seven, two thousand and eight, Ashley Force, facing off against her father, becomes the first woman to ever win an NRA funny car race and help break down barriers for other women drivers. That dive into the history of this iconic moment today on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide to a rapid deep dive into sports history every day now. Ashley Force was born into drag racing. Her father, John Force, worked his way up to become one of the most iconic drag racers of all time, and he ended up having four daughters, three of which also got into racing as well, and Ashley was the first one. Growing up, she was always around racing, as John was drag racing way before she was even born, although for much for life he was always traveling. That didn't mean they didn't get to see each other a lot, but she was either at home or on the track, and the family struggled until nineteen ninety when he finally won his very first funny Car World Championship. Now a funny car in drag racing a car you could buy from a manufacturer, so kind of like the stock cars in NASCAR are meant to be but a dragster, but they do way more modifications to these funny cars nowadays than they do a NASCAR, creating custom fiberglass or carbon fiber bodies, but still representing major car brands such as Chevrolet does the Camaro, Dodge has the Charger, Ford has the Mustang, and Toyota has the Subaru, as well as many others worldwide. And today the average cost for a funny car fully built is between two and three million dollars. And when they first started out they looked more like regular cars. Now you would never even think these cars would hit the road, as they looked like giant wedges going down the strip. Now as she came to her father when she started to get closer to the age of driving and expressed her desire to follow in his footsteps, and he was enthusiastic to teach her everything he could to help her have success in the sport. But he wasn't just going to give her a handout. See, she actually started in other competitions before she made her way to the major NRA series. First, she started in the SuperComp which are the drag racers that are very long and thin with the small wheels in the front and the big wheels in the back and have the engine behind the driver. And after doing this for a few years, she moved up to the top alcohol dragsters otherwise known as a fuel And while she was doing this, she was actually attending college at the same time. She was going to cal State Fullerton majoring in communications, so she would go to class Monday through Thursday and then fly out wherever the races were being held and made it for a very tough time to begin her career, but she really wanted to have that degree. It was something that she wouldn't pass up. She knew that the college was something she could use even after racing. After she graduated, she went full time and she finished her a fuel career with five career victories, five number one qualifiers and it was able to move up to the major NRA series. In two thousand and seven, she moved up to the NRA Power Aid Drag Racing Series in the funny car division, the same one as her father, and she actually joined her father's team where previously she had been on different teams, as her father wanted her to gain knowledge not just from him, but from other racers around and this allowed her to grow her mentality in the NRA. And we'll have to do a whole other episode on how the NRA started, But it started way back in nineteen fifty one in California to form a governing body for the sport of drag racing. And every year they hold the US Nationals at Lucas Oil Riceway in Indiana, which is like the super Bowl of drag racing, and the winner of that gets the Wally Trophy, named after Wally Parks, who founded the NRA. But two thousand and seven wasn't all perfect. Her dad wasn't her only teammate. There was also Eric Mindel, who was a dear friend of Ashley's Anne John's, and he passed away during an accident in Dallas a few months before her first win, and she often describes Eric as a brother as they were so close during this time. Despite the challenges, she did win one thing. She got voted AOL's Sports World's Hottest Athlete. She always jokes that it was her first victory before two thousand and eight. So on April twenty seven, the whole John Force team are racing in Atlanta, and despite this success she had, she had not won a race. When I say win a race, she had won races against individuals, but winning the actual race is winning the final race of the series. So she could win against individuals to work her way through the tournament, but she's not the champion of that tournament. So she had a great start beating three other opponents to get to the final heat of this championship, and her father had done the same on the opposite side of the bracket. Leading up to a showdown versus Ashley and her father, John, and they both come up, and they both are sponsored by Pstroyal GTX and plastered all over the cars, but John's is green and Ashley's is white, so you can tell them apart. And both of them are Ford Mustangs, although you wouldn't be able to tell by all the modifications. And they pull up to the starting line and their teammates they are on the same radio, so they can hear each other and hear each other's teams as they're going. And not only is it the chance for Ashley to win her first series, it's also the chance for John to get his one thousandth win of all time, so it's a big moment whoever wins this, and John is trying to control everything and he hears from his team that there's water at the end of the track, and he wants to make sure that it's safe and that there's no issues as it's not raining at the starting line, and he's yelling and arguing with his team so much so that Ashley, who's on the same radio, pulls out her radio from her helmet because she needed to focus and not listen to her father complaint. They deem the track is safe for the race, and that's when both drivers pull up to the starting line and you see the light tree and when the light turns green, both John and Ashley take off, making their way down the quarter mile track, and Ashley's running as fast as she possibly can, hitting over three hundred and twenty miles an hour in four point eight three five seconds, which ends up being the second fastest time of the whole day. But her father, John didn't even finish. He smoked his tires, meaning his tires blue, and in a puff of smoke, his daughter literally left him in the dust, becoming the very first female to win a funny car race, and it took her father a moment to not react like he normally did after losing a race. He's trying to figure out what happened, why did they lose, and his crew chief tells him, John, your daughter just won her first race, and everything changed. He went to congratulate his daughter on her very first win, and she would continue to have successes, guarding wins in two thousand and nine at the O'Reilly Spring Nationals, and she would go on to win her first US National in two thousand and nine as well, becoming the first female to do that as well, finishing second in points, which is the highest finisher for any female funny car racer. And in twenty ten, she took a little sabbatical as she got pregnant. She actually had gotten married to Daniel Hood, who had worked for John Force Racing, and they were expecting a child, so she took a break from racing and stepped into the president's role for the John Force Racing team. And since then, she's actually not raced an actual race since then, although she has done test driving to keep her funny car license. She's not ruled out the chance to come back, but she's enjoying her life as a mother, a wife, and the president of the team, and also helping her sisters Brittany and Courtney, who are also racing under the John Forst Racing team. Now, Ashley may have been born into drag racing royalty, and it may have been in her blood, but she took the desire to do it. She took the initiative and went to her father to help her career. And she didn't only just go under her father's wings. She worked her way up through the series, showing she had skills way beyond just what was on the track. In less than five seconds, she made history. And if you like the history that we're giving you, please like and subscribe wherever you're listening. It means the world to me. As we are a one man show here at Daily Sports History, I am the writer, researcher, producer, editor and your faithful hosts. And I hope you come back for more Daily Sports History tomorrow