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| · 2013 Formula One F1 Driver Line-up, Rumor Round-up & 2014 Silly Season Rumors - February 10th (Feb 10, 2013)
· 2013 Formula One F1 Driver Line-up, Rumor Round-up & 2014 Silly Season Rumors - February 9th (Feb 9, 2013)
· 2013 Jerez: Formula One F1 Friday Test Results - Raikkonen, Lotus Fastest! (Feb 8, 2013)
· 2013 Jerez: Formula One F1 Thursday Test Results - Massa, Ferrari Fastest! (Feb 7, 2013)
· 2013 Jerez: Formula One (F1) Wednesday Test Results - Grosjean, Lotus Fastest! (Feb 6, 2013)
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2013 NHRA: Courtney Force Leads JFR At Winternationals
Courtney Force and her Traxxas Ford Mustang team were one of the top Funny Cars today in the first session of qualifying at the O’Reilly Auto Parts Winternationals at Auto Club Raceway.
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In the eighth pair of Funny Cars, Force ran alongside Cruz Pedregon; both drivers with equally clean and straight passes to the finish line. The 24-year-old from Yorba Linda, Calif. posted a 4.071 ET at 311.49 mph, taking her to the No. 2 spot and pushing her hotrod to top speed of the day in the Funny Car category.
“Going to the No. 2 spot with a run like that and getting top speed is a great way to start the weekend. We’re looking forward to tomorrow and seeing if we can push it a little further,” said Force.
This is Force’s sophomore year after a strong rookie season in 2012, winning Auto Club’s Road to the Future Award for NHRA’s top Rookie of the Year and achieving Full Throttle’s Hardest Working Crew Award for the Funny Car category alongside her Traxxas Ford Mustang team.
“It was very nerve-racking going up there for the first race of my second season. I think I was more nervous this year starting out at Pomona than I was last year for my rookie season. I don’t know how, but I was just so nervous getting up to the starting line. We’ve got a great team. I have great crew chiefs in Ron Douglas and Dan Hood. We showed in testing in West Palm that we have a good, fast race car,” said Force.
Force had the quickest as well as the fastest Funny Car pass at pre-season testing in West Palm Beach, Fla., giving the team a feeling of confidence for 2013. Force’s best pass of a 4.012 ET at 322 mph was also a personal career-best time and speed.
“I was eager. I felt like this off season took way too long. I was just ready to get back in the seat of my funny car. Getting that first lap out of the way felt amazing. I mean, it’s such a load off your chest and it’s always a plus to go to the top half of the field, so I’m very excited.
“It started to pull me to the outside a little bit so I even turned it off just a click early; it was just a hair, but it ended up being a great run. That shows us that we really have a good car and a great starting point to work with for the rest of the weekend,” said Force.
Courtney Force’s performance was the highlight of the day for John Force Racing. Prior to Force’s run both John Force and Robert Hight smoked the tires in the left lane. Force ended the day with the 14th quickest pass, 6.626, behind the wheel of his Castrol GTX Ford Mustang and Hight’s Auto Club Ford Mustang posted the 16th quickest run at 8.083 seconds. Neither of these times will carry over into the second day of qualifying on Friday.
The first foray into Top Fuel was derailed by a systemic failure of some kind in the brakes of the Castrol EDGE Top Fuel dragster. Rookie Brittany Force performed a textbook burnout but as she was applying the brakes she knew immediately that there was an issue.
“I have had a problem before with the brakes before. There have been times when I have been pulling on the brakes and the car hasn’t stopped. That time was the worst instance. I was pulling on the brakes harder than I was in testing and I couldn’t get the car stopped. That was the reason I did a longer burn out was because I was pulling on it and it kept pulling down track until I got it stopped. Rolling into stage I had a feeling I was going to roll the lights,” said Force, an Automobile Club Road to the Future contender.
The dragster rolled through the staging lights effectively ending her run before it began due to an automatic disqualification.
“I really just wanted to get that first run out of the way and now I have to want a little longer.”
The entire contingent of John Force Racing race cars will be back on the track tomorrow at 2:30 p.m. with Top Fuel leading off for the nitro categories.
PaddockTalk Perspective
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