A Force to Be Reckoned With

For more than a decade, John Force has been the driving force (pun intended) in the National Hot Rod Assn. His victories in a succession of funny cars have been legion, but his impact has been magnified by his outrageous talk.

There is no slowing him down once he gets the microphone and is giving an interview, but everyone loves him because he is not only the best drag racer on the planet, but also the most quotable.

“There’ll never be another one like Force,” is a phrase often heard around the NHRA.

But maybe there will be.

Eric Medlen, the inexperienced crewman Force shockingly chose to replace Powerade champion Tony Pedregon in his Castrol Ford Mustang funny car, appears to be a smaller, younger clone of the 54-year-old racing icon.

Whether Medlen can approach his boss as a driver of 300-mph funny cars remains to be seen, although if his beginning is any indication, he may do it. On the first competitive pass of his life, Medlen was the fastest of all the NHRA funny car drivers on the first day of qualifying for the K&N; Filters Winternationals at Pomona Raceway.

When the rain-postponed event resumed a week later, Medlen showed the way with a remarkable 4.78-second effort for the quarter-mile. Only Force, who powered his way to a 4.74-second time late Saturday, was able to better the rookie.

When Medlen talked to the media, if you closed your eyes, you would swear it was Force talking.

Noticing a group of writers with tape recorders poised, Medlen cracked, “I hope you guys have a lot of batteries, because I’m really wound up. I’m wired.”

Without prompting, he continued:

“I’m just like John. I’m on the radio, talking from the minute I’m in the car [and] I started thinking, ‘I wonder if it makes [his father and crew chief John Medlen] mad that I talk so much.’ I’m talking, and he’s trying to think. And I don’t talk about the race car. I just talk about whatever.

“I say, ‘Hey Dad, does it bother you when I talk on the radio? Do I talk too much?’ He said, ‘Well, no, half the time I can’t hear you anyway,’ because his hearing’s not that good. ‘OK, Dad, tell me the truth, if I talk too much, I’ll try to stop, but I just get so excited, I just can’t help it.’ He said, ‘I think as long as it doesn’t affect your performance and you’re losing sight of what you need to do. If it sidetracks you, you need to take the Valium or whatever else it takes to calm you down. But otherwise it doesn’t matter.’ ”

Force is 5 feet 11, weighs 190 pounds and is 54. Medlen is 5-8, 145 and 30.

So dissimilar, but so similar in nervous energy.

One of Force’s favorite lines is that he was “just a little old truck driver from Bell Gardens before I got to racin’ hot rods.”

Medlen’s take: “I’m just a small-town Western country boy roper from Oakdale.”

Oakdale, in the heart of California’s Central Valley, proclaims itself the “Cowboy Capital of the World.”

Before becoming a racing mechanic and working for his father, long-time crew chief on Pedregon’s car, Medlen was a high school calf roper hoping to make it to the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Assn.

When his father joined John Force Racing eight years ago, Eric came along as an apprentice. At times he lived with Force in a condo near the race shop in Yorba Linda, a haven for the nights the crew worked too late to go home.

“I’ve followed John everywhere he goes, in the shop, on the [starting] line, to interviews, I feel like I think like him. He’s a guy that deals from his heart and thrives off of emotion, and throughout the years that’s something that I’ve always wanted to do.

“I was in a position to watch him like a hawk, always trying to see how he works and what makes him tick. John has this aura about him that he can rise to any occasion, and he’s already on top. He’s just a big personality, and I think that’s one of the things that got him to where he is, because he doesn’t try to make everybody love him. They just do so because he’s himself.”

Force says the toughest thing in Medlen’s future will be to evolve into a seasoned driver.

“To put a kid in there to fill somebody’s shoes, that’s the toughest thing that’s been laid on him. The hardest thing for him is that he’s not going to come out and struggle for the first five years because he’s got money, he’s got technology, he’s got his dad, he’s got me, and he’s got the best car in the business. So the hardest thing for him is how to evolve.

“He’s going to have to stay humble. Some people get into a fast car and they mentally lose it. Their ego goes crazy and they aren’t any good. It’s kind of like a football player that wins the Heisman and goes to the pros and fails, because his ego ran away from him.

“When we gave him the car that Tony won the championship with, it was like giving him the Heisman and sending him into battle, and he is going to have to stay humble. I want him to be with me forever. I believe in him. I believe this kid, with his dad, will evolve. I believe he can do it.”

Medlen appears to be all Force hoped for. When praised about his success, he quickly gives credit to his father and the crew.

“All I do is drive the car,” he says. “The car is only as good as the crew prepares it, and my dad and his guys are the best. They are why I’m doing what I’m doing.”

Medlen will meet Jerry Tolliver in today’s first round of eliminations, and Force had a word of warning for him.

“Eric’s done more than we expected of him, but tomorrow is a whole new ballgame for him,” said the boss, coach and friend. “He’s still got a lot to learn. Even if he loses, he’s done what we hoped for, and what the sponsors hoped for when I convinced them to give him a chance.

“It was a good day for me. My hot rod gave me a little more than his, but I’m very proud of Eric and proud of my daughter Ashley too. I remember the first time I drove in the U.S. Nationals at Indy, my knees were shaking so hard I could hardly stand. That’s the way I felt when Ashley went to the line today. She did a tremendous job.”

Daughter Ashley, after qualifying fifth in a top alcohol dragster, defeated Dennis Swearingen of Valencia in the first round by running 226.42 mph in 5.423 seconds. It was her first side-by-side run in the class.