{"id":2163,"date":"2016-08-02T16:51:14","date_gmt":"2016-08-02T16:51:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/?p=2163"},"modified":"2016-08-02T16:57:02","modified_gmt":"2016-08-02T16:57:02","slug":"force-victorious-in-western-swing-round-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/?p=2163","title":{"rendered":"Force Victorious @ Western Swing Round Two"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Force is the only Funny Car driver who has won the historic NHRA Western Swing races of Denver, Sonoma and Seattle consecutively. \u00a0He scored his 8th Funny Car win at the 29th annual Toyota Sonoma Nationals Force is in position to become the only driver to ever sweep the Western Swing twice. In a final round for the ages Force outran Funny Car point leader Ron Capps 3.948 to 3.960 to capture his 145th career Funny Car win and his 1,251st round win.<\/p>\n

\"NHRA<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI really respect (Capps) because of the way he is if you beat him, it\u2019s the same Ron Capps that if you lose to him. Same respect. The point is that Capps is a special guy and I want to beat him. To me, he is already a champion. I know how that game is played. Trust me. If you take a look, I might have beat him today, but he is a mile ahead of us in the points standings. No one is going to catch him in the Countdown until we get to the Countdown and then we will have a shot. And he will have a lead going into that,\u201d said Force from the John Cardinale Media Center.<\/p>\n

As the No. 6 qualifier Force picked up his first round win of the day with a win over Alexis DeJoria and then he had to face his teammate Robert Hight in the second round. Force and Hight left the starting line together but the 16-time champion got to the finish line first against the 2008 Sonoma Nationals winner. Earlier this season Hight ended Force\u2019s day at Norwalk with a second round win and the two have faced each other 41 times.<\/p>\n

The semi-finals matched Force up with his youngest daughter and the racer he faced in the final round a week ago in Denver. Once again the elder Force was able to race around Courtney Force who started the day as his highest qualified teammate, No. 2, to reach his 244th career final round.<\/p>\n

\"Sonoma-JF\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI have Courtney out there fighting me every week, and this is what she lives for. She is running better than me in the Traxxas Camaro Funny Car. Brittany has got a hot rod that will run with any Top Fuel and Robert Hight, same thing, right there with me. But there has to be a future and the future is live TV, and FOX. I sat out there and looked up at the stands and I wasn\u2019t thinking that I wanted to win here for myself and for Eric Medlen, I was thinking, \u2018Wow, look at that house packed\u2019. It just does something mentally to you that gives you heart. And Capps, he is a great racer and I love him. I gave him a big hug down there,\u201d added Force.<\/p>\n

In the final Force racing in his third final round at the Toyota Sonoma Nationals in the past four seasons got the jump off the starting line on Capps and never trailed in the race. Force took his career winning record against his long-time foe to 49-30 and in the finals at Sonoma Raceway Force now has a 2-1 record.<\/p>\n

\"(John<\/a>

(John Force topped points leader Ron Capps in the final round)<\/p><\/div>\n

Force swept the Western Swing in 1994 and in 2003 he won the first two races contested then at Denver and Seattle before bowing out in the semi-finals of the Sonoma Nationals. Over the past two races Force has moved from 9th to 5th in the Mello Yello point standings and is only 23 points out of 4th place with three regular season races remaining.<\/p>\n

Posted by Elon Werner – Photos by Gary Nastase and Marc Gewertz (NHRA)<\/em><\/p>\n

\"(Del<\/a>

(Del Worsham was credited with low ET of the event at Sonoma at 3.868 secs)<\/p><\/div>\n

Event Essentials: \u00a0 NHRA Toyota Sonoma Nationals (July 29-31st 2016)\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\nNAME<\/strong><\/td>\nET<\/strong><\/td>\nMPH<\/strong><\/td>\nCAREER WIN<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Winner:<\/strong><\/td>\nJohn Force<\/td>\n\u00a03.948<\/td>\n324.59<\/td>\n145th<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
R\/UP:<\/strong><\/td>\nRon Capps<\/td>\n\u00a03.960<\/td>\n320.13<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Low ET:<\/strong><\/td>\nDel Worsham<\/td>\n\u00a03.868<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Top Speed:<\/strong><\/td>\nMatt Hagan<\/td>\n<\/td>\n330.15<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Bump Spot:<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/td>\n\u00a04.517<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Event Entries:<\/strong><\/td>\n\u00a017 Cars<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Force is the only Funny Car driver who has won the historic NHRA Western Swing races of Denver, Sonoma and Seattle consecutively. \u00a0He scored his 8th Funny Car win at the 29th annual Toyota Sonoma Nationals Force is in position to become the only driver to ever sweep the Western Swing twice. In a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2163"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2163"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2174,"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2163\/revisions\/2174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}