MESA, Ariz. — With his last holdout daughter following her sisters from the dragstrip to family function and his own driving career shut down, John Force faces an unfamiliar but exciting mix of drivers to carry on his NHRA legacy in the sport’s 75th season.
Gone are two-time Top Fuel champion and Queen of Speed Brittany Force and two-time and reigning Funny Car champion Austin Prock, who left for greener pastures.
Jack Beckman – the popular 2012 Funny Car champion who taught Force daughters Ashley, Brittany, and Courtney and their mother Laurie as they licensed at Frank Hawley’s Drag Racing School – remains. And Alexis De Joria brings her candid craving for a Funny Car championship that would be John Force Racing’s unprecedented 25th.
“Since Day One, my goal has been to become the sport’s first female Funny Car champion, and that is what I have been working towards for many years. I’ve been fortunate to drive for some of the best teams and team owners out here. To be invited to drive for John Force Racing means so much to me and is another step forward in my career. JFR has a Funny Car program that’s unmatched,” she said.
But De Joria said she never thought this opportunity would come her way: “Back when I started my nitro career, everyone who was driving there at the time either had the last name Force or was part of the Force family in some capacity, with the exception of Mike Neff. I always thought it was cool that all of John’s daughters raced. He put his girls in record-breaking, championship-winning race cars, and I couldn’t be more stoked to now be a part of that program.”
Fresh on the scene are Top Fuel’s Josh Hart and Funny Car’s Jordan Vandergriff, each of whom comes with a compelling story and inherits a record-setting race car.
Hart takes over the dragster that set records coast to coast, clocked the fastest pass in drag-racing history at 343.51 mph, and broke the performance-pinnacle 340-mph mark eight times last year. His transition from Top Fuel team owner-driver to simply driver triggered a domino effect that altered two other prominent teams and even rippled to the Pro Stock class.
It began in September, when Hart sold his operation to Richard Freeman, owner of the ever-expanding Elite Motorsports. In turn, motorsports megastar Tony Stewart, who fields his own two-car team, signed on to drive the new Elite dragster – with Hart’s longtime sponsor, R+L Carriers.
That’s because Stewart had been filling the cockpit of his own dragster (and earning the 2025 regular-season title) for wife Leah Pruett while she was focusing for the past two seasons on their family which includes 15-month-old son Dominic.
She is reclaiming her seat this season, so Stewart decided to remain in Top Fuel competition, which means competing against his wife, and he struck a deal with Freeman. They already had forged an alliance on the business side.
But Hart’s former dragster is being put to use as a test vehicle for six-time Pro Stock champion Erica Enders and her teammate/on-track rival Aaron Stanfield, should they want to switch to a 12,000-horsepower ride.
Despite how it might have looked, Hart did not “lose” the relationship with R+L.
“My relationship R+L is with the actual owner. We do a lot of work for them privately (at Hart’s Burnyzz Speed Shop), and that’s never going to change. It’s a business opportunity for them, so it was a B2B play,” he said. “I understand it. I accept it. I’m supportive of it. We definitely connected the dots. My original plan was not that, but once we all got to the table, it just made too much sense to ignore. I think it was a grand slam from day one. Richard and I personally had done business in the past. That was always very seamless, so I didn’t even think twice about it. Richard and I are buying car collections and doing things together that people don’t see that benefit.”
The car collection, Hart said, already is paying off: “We’ve already started selling those cars. We’re all going to make more money. So ultimately it just feeds this monster on this side. And that was the plan.”
All that was independent of JFR. So, free of the headaches of team ownership, Hart is antsy to jump into the prized dragster, which comes complete with the same crew that tuned Brittany Force to her head-turning feats.
He’ll make his debut for JFR at the March Gatornationals at Florida’s Gainesville Raceway – the backyard venue at which the class rookie from nearby Ocala won in his career-first Top Fuel start in 2021 and in 2023 captured the $80,000-to-win Top Fuel All-Star Callout.
“I’m actually going to get to drive the fastest car in the world. Not everybody can say that,” Hart said.
“I am blessed that every single person on the team wanted to stay when they found out it was me that was going to drive it. I never paid attention to what everybody thought of me out there. But when it comes to the nucleus, the team, you want to make sure that there’s good chemistry and everyone seems to think there’s going to be good chemistry, which is awesome,” Hart said. “I hope they don’t back down at all. I hope we go for the jugular every time we get a chance. I really just feel very blessed to even be aligned with that. For me, it’s the ultimate fan-dream come true.”
For Vandergriff, this is a chance to renew his rivalry with Prock and dethrone him – with Prock’s car and crew chief and sponsor, in the race car that was first officially to break the 340-mph barrier in November 2024.
Vandergriff’s and Prock’s careers have been connected since they were rival Top Fuel rookies in 2019. They battled on the race track, and when Vandergriff’s financing fizzled, he ended up interviewing Prock as a reporter on the FOX broadcast.
“Our careers will continue to be intertwined, I think. And I wouldn’t want it any other way,” Vandergriff said. “So let the rivalry begin again. We’re taking the rivalry to new heights.”
With that, the fan engagement this year will rise to new heights, as well.
