TV

A&E reality has racing legend John Force butting heads with his girls

By Jeff Wilson
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sunday, August 06, 2006

YORBA LINDA, Calif. — John Force is introducing his three drag-racing daughters to TV viewers - and, in a sense, to himself.

Life in the fast lane kept the drag racing legend on the road, unable to see his girls grow up. Now, as he gets to know them, the three Force girls with jaw-dropping good looks are formidable drivers in the male-dominated sport.

Anchoring A&E's reality series "Driving Force" is Force, the toothy patriarch and world's fastest father struggling to get to know and understand his daughters.

"It's about a family that has problems. We're not the Osbournes, but we're not the Osmonds either," Force says.

He expects the A&E show to boost the National Hot Rod Association sport into NASCAR orbit.

"We're NASCAR's little brother. But we're going to be as big as NASCAR, maybe bigger," the 57-year-old Force says in his trademark nonstop, staccato speaking style.

"Driving Force" (Mondays 8 p.m. CDT) brings Force, wife Laurie and daughters Ashley, Brittany and Courtney into the nation's living rooms from the family's Orange County compound and drag strips around the country.

The estate includes a hillside main house, where his wife and three daughters live, and a lakefront condo - where Force has to stay after being kicked out of the house. After more than three decades on the drag-racing circuit, Force seems an ill-fitting intruder struggling to communicate with his family.

"Laurie loves me, she just doesn't like me," Force says. "Ashley's helping me get back into the house."

Three of four Force daughters are now drag racers. The fourth is Adria Hight, 36, from a previous marriage; she's chief financial officer for John Force Racing Inc. and she recently presented Force with his first grandchild.

"A girl!" Force notes with a wouldn't-you-know-it shrug.

Force is a multiple National Hot Rod Association funny car champion who routinely blazes to the quarter-mile finish line in 4.6 seconds at 333 mph in his Castrol GTX Ford Mustang hybrid. He has 119 career victories and a record 14 team championships in 16 years.

He's the NHRA's drag-racing ambassador, an optimistic, charismatic character with a big heart called "the Elvis of the asphalt" by the association. The former truck driver, youngest of five siblings who grew up in a trailer park, is now running a multimillion-dollar company with 70 employees.

Ashley, 23, drives top alcohol dragsters; she's also got a bachelor's degree in communications from California State University, Fullerton. Brittany, 19, and Courtney, 17, drive super competition (gas-fueled) dragsters.

"I didn't want to do a reality show," Force says. "But this isn't about John Force, it's about the three girls."

Still, Force is the key character and the lone blast of testosterone on the Yorba Linda estate, about 45 miles southeast of Los Angeles. He missed all the recitals, the picnics, the ball games, the proms, and he wells up with tears recalling his astonishment when Ashley's teacher told him she was taking welding and auto shop in school.

After moaning for years "I want sons," Force is embracing his daughters and making up for lost time by bringing them into his world on the track.

"John Force is absolutely the best reality show character you could ever have. He's passionate and his heart's in the right place," says Dan Partland, the show's executive producer.

"What I've learned through the show is I really am a jerk. My wife was right," Force says.

Asked about the possibility of divorce, Laurie, his wife of 24 years, rolls her eyes and shrugs: "We should have done that years ago."

On The Web: www.aetv.com/drivingforce, www.johnforceracing.com, http://www.nhra.com