FORCE, SNOW LOCKED IN BATTLE FOR DIVISION 4 TITLE

Memphis, Tenn. — They're racing this week for the Top Alcohol Dragster championship at the TCI Sportsman Nationals at Memphis Motorsports Park, but Gene Snow and Ashley Force also share a Funny Car connection.

Funny Cars were a big part of Snow's past, he being one of the categories original super stars, and, based on Monday's initial orientation session, they are likely to become a big part of Ashley's future.

Force, the 22-year-old daughter of 13-time NHRA Funny Car Champion John Force, warmed up her father's 8,000 horsepower Castrol GTX Start Up Ford Mustang, executed a burnout and made a launch in a closed test session Monday at Heartland Park-Topeka.

It was the first in a planned series of Monday orientations that will continue this season and into next. Ashley is likely to move up in classification in 2007.

In the meantime, the former high school cheerleader will continue to drive the Castrol/Hot Wheels dragster for car owners Jerry Darien and Ken Meadows and continue to duel with Snow not just for the South Central Division championship, but for a national Lucas Sportsman title.

A graduate of California State University-Fullerton where she majored in communications, Ashley rolls into MMP as both the national and divisional points leader. Snow, the Fort Worth businessman who has won NHRA national events in four different racing categories, is close behind in both races.

Although she is in only her second season of full-time racing, Ashley already has won three NHRA national events including the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals at Clermont, Ind., a race in which she reached the winners' circle for the first time 39 years after Snow accomplished the same feat.

In addition to her Indy success, she also won national events at the Texas Motorplex outside Dallas and at the season-ending Automobile Club of Southern California Finals at Pomona, Calif., where she shared the winners' circle with the Funny Car winner—her father.

Despite her pedigree, her 2004 success—which included a South Central Division championship, Rookie-of-the-Year and Driver-of-the-Year honors, and her current standing, Ashley hasn't dominated this season.

In fact, because of an NHRA rule change that penalized A/Fuel dragsters like those campaigned by Darien and Meadows, she often has struggled this year, especially in hot, humid conditions, which is why she is in town early to take advantage of an open test session at MMP on Thursday.

As for Monday's Funny Car test, the California girl with the Barbie doll good looks said "it wasn't as scary as I thought it'd be."

The biggest problem, she said, was that in her dragster, she pulls levers to activate fuel pumps and perform other functions. In the Funny Car, though, you push the levers in to do the same things.

Oh, yeah, one more thing.

"Gary Scelzi [the three-time former NHRA Top Fuel champion and current Funny Car driver] told me to head to the gym and work on building some Popeye muscles," Ashley said."'You're gonna need 'em to steer on one of these things,' he told me. Like right now, I barely have Olive Oil muscles."

DID YOU KNOW?
While attending Esperanza High School in Yorba Linda, Calif., Ashley took, as electives, auto shop and welding classes. ... By an on-line vote of the readers of Hot Rod Magazine, Ashley recently was named the favorite "Real Woman of Hot Rodding," the result of a special issue of the magazine devoted to 10 women in motor racing, most of them drivers including Indy 500 phenom Danica Patrick. ... Ashley and John aren't the only drivers in the Force family. Ashley's sisters, Brittany and Courtney, both are licensed in Super Comp as is their mother, Laurie Force. In fact, while her mother is watching her race this weekend at Memphis, her dad is overseeing Brittany's competitive debut at a regional Super Comp race at Fontana, Calif.

SOUTH CENTRAL DIVISION (DIV. 4) LUCAS SERIES POINTS
TOP ALCOHOL DRAGSTER
1. Ashley Force; Yorba Linda, Calif.; 178
2. Gene Snow; Ft. Worth, Texas; 167
3. Aaron Olivarez; Sandy, Utah; 116
4. James Thompson Jr.; Vernon, Texas; 107
5. Darryl Hitchman; Hanford, Calif.; 96