Photography: John Force Racing / Gary Nastase / Auto Imagery
EPPING, N.H. (June 1, 2025) – Disappointed by an opening round loss two weeks ago at Chicago, a stumble that temporarily denied her a milestone 300th NHRA round win, Brittany Force responded Sunday in a manner one would expect of a two-time Top Fuel World Champion, beating No. 1 qualifier Doug Kalitta and point leader Tony Stewart in the final two rounds to win the 12th NHRA New England Nationals at New England Dragway.
The second youngest of John Force’s drag racing daughters wrestled her Monster Energy dragster across the finish line in 3.694 seconds at a booming 340.39 miles per hour in the final round to outpace Stewart by .007 of a second.
“This is just a big one,” she said. “The last time I stood in the winner’s circle with (my dad) was here and I wanted to win for him. This one is dedicated to him and everything he’s done over the last year (since he was injured in a 300 mph crash at Richmond, Va.). It’s been really tough and we’re so proud of him and I’m just happy to have him out here. I need him out here.”
“Always excited to see my daughter win and have the opportunity to celebrate with her in the winner circle,” said the elated team owner. “I really wanted her to get it done. Congratulations to the whole Monster Energy team. The car was on a roll today. It went down the racetrack on every run in eliminations and she laid down two of the fastest speeds in Top Fuel history.
“It was a dominating win,” marveled the 16-time Funny Car champion. “She mentioned this was the race I won last year, which was pretty cool, and it gave it more meaning. She’s doing a great job for Monster, HendrickCars.com, PEAK, Cornwell Tools, GRP and all the sponsors that support JFR.”
Not only did Brittany become just the 12th Top Fuel driver in the 75-year history of the NHRA series to win 300 rounds, but she also raised the winner’s trophy for the 18th time in her 12-year pro career, tying her with Shirley Muldowney for the most event victories by a woman in the sport’s signature class.
As if that wasn’t enough for one day, she applied an exclamation point by accelerating to a track record-setting 341.42 mph in her semifinal victory over Kalitta, just a tick off the 341.59 mph NHRA national record she set last April at Charlotte, N.C.
It was her second win at New England Dragway, the all-concrete track on which she prevailed in 2017 on the way to the first of her championships.
A seemingly prophetic Force all but predicted the outcome Saturday night when, at the conclusion of qualifying, she proclaimed “I’m feeling optimistic (and) believe we have a good shot at picking up our first win of the season.”
Sunday night, it was “mission accomplished” for the 38-year-old and a Monster Energy crew led by David Grubic and John Collins. She’ll start the qualifying ritual for this week’s 23rd NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals at Bristol, Tenn., in fifth place, 164 points behind Stewart but less than 100 back of second place Shawn Langdon.
“I knew we would get back to this winner’s circle,” beamed the 2013 Rookie of the Year, “and I’m so proud of all these guys. Coming into race day, something just felt different—our whole team had a good feeling.
“It was a great story — Tony, (with) five final rounds in a row, facing a Force in the final. Grubnic told me before the run, ‘you’ve been here before. you’ve won here. Just go have fun.’ That reminder brought me back to why we do this. We love it. You’ve got to drive from the heart, like my dad says.”
It was a disappointing and expensive day for the JFR Funny Car contingent although it ended with Austin Prock and Jack Beckman still 1-2 in the Mission Foods driver standings.
Prock again was burned by the erratic behavior of a Cornwell Tools Chevy SS that has developed something of a Jekyll-and-Hyde personality. After qualifying No. 1 for the 17th time in 27 starts since moving from Top Fuel to Funny Car, he was upset in round one by Buddy Hull when his national record-holding Chevy inexplicably lost traction as soon as the reigning series champion hit the throttle against No. 16 qualifier Buddy Hull.
“Frustrated,” Prock said of the outcome. “We all are. That was the last thing I was expecting, and I guarantee you (it) was the last thing my team was expecting. We don’t blow the tires off at the hit. I can’t tell you the last time it did that.
“I got it to recover (but) it just wasn’t enough,” he said, “so we’ll regroup and go to Bristol. But this stings, for sure. We had a great race car this weekend and the weather conditions were falling in our favor to go to another final round and contend for another win, and we screwed it up.”
Nevertheless, Prock at least was able to avoid the fate that befell Beckman who was uninjured when his PEAK Antifreeze and Coolant Chevy slammed into the guard wall in a vain attempt to chase down Spencer Hyde in the semifinals.
“I’m fine,” Beckman said after climbing out of the wreckage. “My feelings are hurt, our race car is hurt and we’re still not quite sure what happened, but I’m not hurt. I’ve never had anything like that happen, but the safety equipment did its job. Thank you to Simpson and everybody that’s helped us with the safety gear. We’ll rebound. We’ll unload our spare car, which is last year’s PEAK Chevy SS, and we’ll be back in Bristol and ready to win again I promise you.”
