John Force Racing is one of America’s great sports dynasties with 24 championships, hundreds of wins and a huge fan following from around the world. JFR remains the sport’s undeniable “Home to Champions” as the winningest team in motorsports history.
John Force was so bad in the early years that Larry Sutton, the official starter at Irwindale Raceway, once banned him from the track as a safety risk to both hims and everyone else. Force’s less than stellar reputation was prevalent among the established Funny Car racers of the late 1970s and early 1980s. For nine long seasons he didn’t win an NHRA event before finally breaking through in Montreal in June 1987. Starting his racing career with a less than stellar reputation as a serious competitor, who could have imagined that Force would become the most prolific winning driver in NHRA history?
After finishing in the top six of the points standings for five consecutive years, Force would have a breakout season in 1990, winning seven out of seven finals-round appearances on the way to his first world championship. He was the No. 1 qualifier 10 times and finished the season with an amazing 45-12 round record. John backed up his 1990 success with another championship in 1991, where he had five wins in 10 final round appearances and a 48-13 round record.
After a season filled with fires and crashes in 1992, John Force came back to win 12 NHRA Championships including 10 straight from 1993-2002 and then again in 2004 and 2006. John dominated like no other driver or athlete in history. JFR became the first multi-car team, with a lineup of talented young drivers throughout the years that included Force’s daughters, Ashley Force Hood (raced from 2002-2010), Courtney Force (2006-2018) and Brittany Force (2006-2025). The ‘first family of drag racing’, as they were dubbed, were featured in their own reality show, ‘Driving Force’ on A&E in 2006 and 2007. Their fanbase grew as fans, sponsors and media loved the family dynamic of the team.
After the tragic loss of teammate Eric Medlen in a testing accident in March 2007, JFR created the Eric Medlen Project to focus on safety. Six months later, John had a horrific crash in Dallas when his car came apart at over 300 mph. He survived with major trauma to his extremities but no head injuries thanks to cockpit modifications after Medlen’s crash. After spending a month at Baylor Hospital, John came home to continue off-season daily physical therapy. He returned to the funny car seat 137 days after his crash to compete in the 2008 season and finished seventh in the points standings.
Following the 2008 season, JFR focused on safety as well as performance. This dual focus did anything but slow the teams down as Ashley Force Hood won back-to-back years at the prestigious U.S. Nationals and Robert Hight clinched his first NHRA Funny Car World Championship in 2009. The following season, John Force won his historic and emotional 15th championship with an unprecedented final-day-of-the-season charge, overcoming the largest final day point deficit to win a championship. John took his 16th championship three seasons later in 2013, clinching the win with a victory over daughter Courtney Force in the final round of the fall Las Vegas event. Courtney made history, as well, becoming the 100th female winner of all time, and going on to win a total of 12 events in her Funny Car career. Despite a major sponsor change following the 2014 season with the departure of Ford and Castrol, JFR announced a new partnership with Chevrolet, Peak and Monster Energy in 2015 and continued winning races and chasing championships with their four teams.
In 2017, John Force Racing rewrote their own record books winning both the Top Fuel and Funny Car championships in the same season. Brittany broke through for JFR’s first Top Fuel championship and Robert Hight took home his second Funny Car title. En route to his second championship, Hight set both ends of the Funny Car NHRA national records. In Sonoma, California, Robert would go 339.87 mph to set the speed record and in Brainerd, Minnesota, he recorded a 3.793-second pass to set the elapsed time record. Brittany would follow suit in 2019 by setting the Top Fuel elapsed time record at 3.623-seconds in Reading, Pennsylvania and the speed record at 338.17 mph in the fall Las Vegas event. Meanwhile, John was setting records of his own capturing his 150th (Seattle) and 151st (Indy) career victories. The newest driver to the NHRA line-up, Austin Prock, son of longtime tuner Jimmy Prock, also added his name to the history books when he doubled up beside John for his first win in Seattle in a Top Fuel dragster. Robert dominated that season with six wins to clinch his third NHRA Funny Car World Championship.
In 2020, the COVID-19 Pandemic put JFR on pause so, but, while no professional racing happened, the John Force Racing Jr. Dragster teams of Autumn Hight and Hoodlum Brothers Jacob and Noah Hood took center stage. The trio brought in three wins. JFR returned to NHRA Top Fuel and Funny Car competition in 2021 as a three car team featuring John Force, Brittany Force and Robert Hight. In 2022, JFR returned to four teams, bringing back Austin Prock’s Top Fuel team. After a strong season, Brittany and her Monster Energy team clinched their second NHRA Top Fuel World Championship. The 2023 season ended with Robert Hight earning four victories and finishing second in the championship points before making the decision to retire. In 2024, JFR returned to three teams with Austin moving over to Funny Car to take over Robert’s seat. John won twice early in the year, including his 157th race win in Epping, NH, before his devastating crash in Virginia. John Force Racing continued forward, bringing on Jack Beckman to fill in for Force during his recovering from a TBI. Despite an emotional year, the teams finished strong, with Austin winning the Funny Car championship in his rookie season, Jack securing second place and Brittany finishing fifth in the Top Fuel standings. In 2025, Prock won nine races and his second Funny Car championship, Beckman won JFR’s 300th race win at the Winternationals, and finished third in the point standings, and Brittany finished fourth, earning her record-setting 19th Wally at the fall race in Las Vegas (becoming the winningest female in Top Fuel history) and then stepped out of the seat at the conclusion of the season to focus on starting a family. It was during the week leading into Pomona that John Force announced his official retirement from competition, concluding the greatest driving career in drag racing history.