John Force doesn't walk into rooms. He fills them up like a collision-triggered airbag.
That's how I knew, as I reported "The Gravity of Speed" for The Mag, that this new version of John Force was a much different man than the one I first encountered -- no, experienced -- nearly a decade and a half ago.
During my previous life as a television producer I was on the team that brought you the late, great RPM2Night on ESPN2. As we tackled the task of cranking out half-hours of motorsports television magic night in and night out, there were a few run-home-to-mama absolutes we knew that we could count on.
1. Dale Earnhardt Senior always sold.
2. Like the President, you never graphically ID'ed The King, Richard Petty.
3. It didn't matter what question you asked John Force, you could fill an entire show with the answer.
The first time I sat in the same room with Force was during the 1996 season. My fellow field producer Scott Smith (now an NHRA employee) conducted a sit-down interview with the then-five-time NHRA Funny Car champion that lasted more than an hour and I am pretty sure consisted of only five questions.
Force held court on subjects ranging from billiards ("If you learn how to shoot pool drunk you'll never be able to play sober"), to a fiery crash at Memphis ("I saw Elvis at 1,000 feet"). He bulldozed his way through rants on finding good fried chicken, accidentally drinking nitrous oxide, earthquakes, and wrecking rental cars ("It's embarrassing how many of those stories I actually have").
Twelve years later, April 24, 2008, the man who greeted me in his motorhome at the Atlanta Dragway, now a 14-time champion, was still a talker (during a 45-minute interview I asked four questions), but the pacing was more deliberate. He didn't crash through a plate glass window of subjects like he used to do. He stayed on task, sticking to the topics at hand, namely his quest for safer racecars and his love for family, particularly daughter Ashley.
He navigated his words carefully, almost as carefully as he navigated the steps up into his motorcoach. Force is still rehabbing a body that had been crushed in an ultraviolent crash at Dallas seven months earlier.
"Takes some getting used to, doesn't it?" He said to me, reacting to what must have been a pretty bad poker face on my part. "It freaks the fans out a little when I don't come running over to them like I used to. But they still love me. It's amazing."
The experience was a bit sobering for me, but so had been the previous year and a half, when Force's protégé Eric Medlen had been killed in a practice crash and John (along with Medlen's father, also named John) had worked to make Funny Cars safer. Those improvements had saved Force's life that day in Dallas and his new mission was what had gotten him through what he calls "bone-cracking physical therapy". His new motivation in life wasn't winning more Wally Parks trophies. It was making drag racing safer for both him and his rivals, including his little girl.
Two days later that little girl beat her daddy to earn her first NHRA finals win.
I didn't see Force again for another five months. During that time I hadn't been able to shake the image of what had looked so much like a slowing old man. When I saw him at the sparkling new ZMax Dragway in Charlotte on September 14, it took him all of five seconds to wipe that image out of my mind forever.
"Oh no! Look out! Everybody shut it down! Big-time ESPN sportswriter is in the tent! He'll have us all crying and telling all our secrets in about five minutes!"
He jumped on his motor scooter and launched himself at me en route to go watch Ashley begin her Sunday elimination rounds up at the starting line. It didn't bother him that he'd failed to qualify his own car. He was in full-on team owner and daddy mode.
"Look at this," he shouted as he wagged his wrists and legs around in circles. "Back up to speed. Not bad for a 59-year old hot rod racer that ought to be dead. I'm like Lee Majors, the Six Million Dollar Man. Didn't he get into a fight with Bigfoot or something? Big hairy sonofabitch. What was the woman's name? The Bionic Woman. Whatever happened to her? Somebody said they saw on TV at two in the morning selling something. If this was ten years ago I'd know myself. Used to sit up all night. Couldn't sleep. Sleep fine now, though. They made me learn how to sleep in the hospital, but you wouldn't know it from all the people coming in there poking me with stuff and taking my temperature every ten minutes…gotta go…good to see you back at the track…"
Thanks champ, but not nearly as good it is to see you -- the real you -- back at the track.