Already a Winner : Helping Less Fortunate as Important as Record Year for Force

John Force is favored to win his 12th funny-car drag racing event of the year today--a record for a single season in the National Hot Rod Assn.’s Winston Racing Series--but win or lose, this has been a gratifying weekend for the three-time champion from Yorba Linda.

Force took time out from helping prepare his car for today’s Winston Finals at Pomona Raceway to play host to Chris Hooper, a 10-year-old boy with muscular dystrophy from Bakersfield. Hooper recently received a junior dragster from the Make-A-Wish Foundation, which grants favorite wishes to children with life-threatening illnesses.

“Did you see the look on his face when we lifted Chris into the driver’s seat?” exclaimed Force. “That was the most fun I’ll have all week.”

Hooper, who gets around in a mechanical wheelchair, races his junior dragster at Bakersfield Raceway on Friday nights as part of an NHRA program somewhat akin to Little League baseball.

“Chris is the same age as my daughter, Ashley,” Force said. “I’m on overload this week, trying to win my 12th race, making final arrangements for a movie on my ‘Comeback Tour de Force’ season, taking care of sponsor requests, interviews and stuff like that, but my No. 1 priority today is Chris.

“It would just tear me up if I couldn’t find time for youngsters like him. This is the third Make-A-Wish experience for me, and each one is special. Every time I meet these kids, I think about my own four girls, and thank my lucky stars they’re healthy.”

Force, besides giving Hooper the usual gift items--a T-shirt, cap and autographed picture--fired up the 5,000-horsepower engine and gave it a blip that frightened onlookers, but brought a big smile to the youngster’s face. Then he and Bob Hooper, Chris’ father and a drag racer himself, lifted the boy into the seat of Force’s funny car.

“What amazes me is that these kids are the strongest people I’ve known,” Force said. “They don’t want anyone to feel sorry for them. They act like they’re going to make the most out of every minute they have left.

“I’ve been lucky when God took care of me. I should have been killed in a race car any number of times. I’ve been on fire and that never scared me, but I get scared when I talk to some of these young people and realize that when I come back next year, they may not be here.”

The elder Hooper drives a super-gas Chevy Vega on weekends at Bakersfield Raceway. When he lived in Buena Park, Hooper was a regular racer at the Lions, Irwindale and Orange County drag strips.

“Chris lives for racing,” said Kim Hooper, the boy’s mother. “He’s always out with his dad helping with the car. When we heard about Make-A-Wish, all he wanted was a junior dragster. He got it last month and we had it fitted with a hand brake and accelerator so he can drive it.”

Force has also entertained Make-A-Wish youngsters during races at Brainerd, Minn., and Sonoma.

“I know what the kids love most is getting to sit in my race car,” Force said. “I know because I can see the excitement in their face. The worst I’ve felt was one day I started to lift a kid up and his mother said, ‘Don’t pick him up, his bones are so brittle they might break.’ I just started crying when she told me that.”

In a turnabout, Chris Hooper autographed a picture of himself in his junior dragster and presented it to Force.

“The best thing that ever happened to me was Cruz Pedregon, and the best thing that’s happened to me this week is Chris Hooper,” Force said.

Pedregon is the funny-car driver from Moorpark who unseated Force as national champion last year after Force had won in 1990 and 1991.

“I never thought we’d lose and then along came Cruz to get hot in the second half of the season and take it away from us. When the ’92 season ended, I started work immediately for my comeback tour.”

When Force won two weeks ago in Dallas, it was his 11th national victory this season, matching the record set by pro stock driver Darrell Alderman in 1991. The most funny-car victories in a single season had been seven, set 17 years ago by Don Prudhomme.

Also at Dallas, Force set an NHRA elapsed-time record of 4.99 seconds, becoming the first funny-car driver to “officially” better the five-second mark. It was the third time this season that he lowered the record.

Chuck Etchells of Putnam, Conn., had a run of 4.987 seconds two weeks earlier at Topeka, Kan., but to be accepted as a record, the time must be backed up within 1% of the speed and Etchells did not do it.

“I was sure we were going to be the first in the fours,” Force said. “I was standing there when Chuck did it, and when I heard the numbers, I felt naked, like I was all alone in the world.”

Force got a measure of revenge at Dallas when he posted his national record and then defeated Etchells in the final in a battle of racing’s only sub-five second funny cars.