11/9/2022 0 Comments Motor drag racing 2015![]() ![]() It’s a radio-controlled car, and they sell them worldwide. No! It’s never enough! Traxxas came on board with us two years ago, signed up with us. You’ve won 16 championships is that enough in your mind? The people like Castrol and Ford Auto Club the list goes on, but they all put me here. ![]() Ashley took a few years off to have some kids - she won Indy two years in a row in Funny Car. I always said NHRA took me away from my kids ’cause I was always on the road with them growing up, they were always there in the summer, and now they’re all racing. John Force: The need for speed! You know you wake up every day and when you win, even when you lose, the cheer of the crowd, the fans - they love it! Motorsport worldwide, it’s all about the car, the automobile. NZV8: After all these years, what keeps you so passionate about drag racing? The room houses Eric’s car, along with helmets, fire suits, and other memorabilia from Eric’s life and racing career. Eric’s father, John Medlen, was the crew chief on the car at the time. JFR headquarters in Brownsburg is also home to the Eric Medlen tribute room, dedicated to the memory of JFR driver, who passed away in a testing accident driving the funny car he raced for JFR. As for the supercharger development room, well, not too much information was given away about that one - some top secret projects, maybe? At JFR they make their own blocks, heads, blowers, blower rotors, manifolds, main caps, flywheels - the list goes on and on. The machine shop alone is nothing short of amazing, and not used just to produce a few bits and pieces. This continues through to the paint/decal shop, where straight carbon bodies are turned into the rolling billboards that keep the sponsors and fans happy. All the pipes are bent, and all brackets are cut there, right down to tinning and mounting the bodies - it’s all done under the one roof at JFR. The chassis shop builds all the JFR dragster and funny car chassis, and has in fact begun selling chassis to other teams. This facility allows almost every aspect of building a race car to be done in-house. That’s a serious fuel bill just to get the teams there! John Force Racing headquarters Now don’t forget the John Force Racing Road Show trailer, which promotes JFR and its sponsors at events - all up, you have 10 truck and trailer units at each meeting. In addition to the eight rigs for the race cars, there is also the conference/PR/lounge trailer, in which the teams’ managers and PR people go about their business, as well as a lounge area for the Force family. It’s part of what John calls his brains trust, and, while a particular crew chief is responsible for each car, it truly is a team effort. What surprised me most was that the computers of all four race teams were interlinked, so the crew chief for John’s car can look at Courtney’s data, the crew chief for Courtney’s car can look at Robert’s data, and so on. Up the front of the first truck in each team is the crew chief’s lounge, with four computer screens set up to display all the data downloaded from the race cars’ on-board computers. All the pairs of trailer units are identical, so it didn’t matter which of John’s teams you went to, you would still know where to find anything in each trailer. ![]() They carry eight complete engines and sets of heads per car, as well as more parts to rebuild them than all our race cars combined in New Zealand. There was even a complete spare car sitting up in the roof of the second trailer. They have absolutely everything in there to rebuild a race car, from welders to lathes to clutch grinders and drills. The set-up itself was more than impressive, with two trucks and trailers per team parked side by side and linked together, creating a truly mobile workshop. ![]()
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