Would NHRA’s Ashley Force Hood Be A Good Fit In NASCAR?
She has more career wins in major league racing than Danica Patrick. Not only that, she’s leading the points in her specific category and could potentially win the championship this season.
And while there’s no indication that she’s interested in racing in NASCAR, or if anyone in NASCAR wants to lure her to compete in the Sprint Cup series, keep your eye on NHRA Funny Car points leader Ashley Force Hood.
The daughter of 14-time Funny Car champ John Force, Ashley has been tearing up the asphalt this season in only her third full season in the Funny Car ranks. Not only did she win earlier this year at Baytown, Texas, Force has finished in the top-five in every one of the 12 races thus far this season, adding four runner-up showings to her second career win.
Now, granted, every race for Force Hood typically lasts less than five seconds and covers only 1,000 feet on a straightaway. But given what she’s achieved so far, not to mention having the genes of the greatest driver in drag racing history, how long will it be before some Cup team owner asks Force Hood if she’d be interested in going NASCAR racing?
I’m not even sure she could handle NASCAR-style racing, with the huge disparity of tracks to race upon, from the smallest short tracks like Bristol and Martinsville, to the biggest superspeedways of Daytona, Talladega and Indianapolis.
But if Force Hood decided to go give NASCAR a try, she’d make folks forget about Danica in a split-second. Ashley is the real deal and even though she’s made her living up to now wrestling fire-breathing, 8,000-horsepower belching nitromethane-powered Funny Cars, if she’s like racers in any forms of motorsports, the unique challenge of switching from drag racing to stock car racing would intrigue and interest her.
Now watch, after they read this, don’t be surprised if guys like Jack Roush (who got his start in drag racing) and Rick Hendrick start calling Force Hood to gauge her response. I think it’s pretty clear Danica will never race in NASCAR – or, at least, anytime soon – so why not give Ashley a chance to prove herself.
Catch y’all Thursday.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/07 at 09:04 PMYes, please! No doubt she has the racing genes. I think a chunk of the requirements in racing isn’t knowing how to turn left or right but knowning how to communicate with your team, how to stay calm under pressure, how to understand what a piece of machinery is trying to tell you, and natural reflexes. Obviously she has the last one, but I’m pretty confident she has the others as well. Plus, like Kyle Petty, she has a lifetime of exposure to how a champion is supposed to act. Danica is reasonably attractive…the offsprings of Mr Force are truly beautiful, stunning women so that isn’t even a contest in the sponsor-wars.
Please, Roush-Fenway, keep Ashley in a Ford and put her in your development program!!!
“Danica is reasonably attractive…the offsprings of Mr Force are truly beautiful, stunning women so that isn’t even a contest in the sponsor-wars.”
You know, hotness aside, if the best she’s going to do is wind up being a field-filler, I would much rather look at her on the internet than have her clog up a race track. Seriously, guys who actually drive race cars for a living, like Sam Hornish Jr., Dario Franchitti, Robby Gordon, and so an and so forth have struggled mightily in NASCAR. She “drives” a hot rod down a straightaway for a few seconds. That’s a HUGE difference from driving a Sprint Cup car.
To answer the (rhetorical) question posed in the headline, “Would NHRA’s Ashley Force Hood Be A Good Fit In NASCAR?”, I would say, no. The main point seems to be that she would be the anti-Danica, insofar as she’s supposedly “the real deal” (whatever that means) and she’s had success in her chosen profession. What exactly has she shown that would lead you to believe that she could cut it in NASCAR? There’s nothing in the article that you can point to to answer that question in the affirmative.
There’s a huge difference between driving a superlight, ultradownforce, steamroller-wheeled, 15000 RPM Champ car compared to a stock car as well. For that matter, there is a HUGE difference between a skateboard and a AWD Subaru, that doesn’t seem to be an issue for Ken Block. Not sure if you compete, but I started on the 1/4 mile and did a stint in circle track and yes, the things that make a good driver on one helps in the other. Reflexes, car control, surface reading, nerves. The other big part is the media and public. Ashley handles herself very well, yeh, Danica is the spotlight pig, but do you think for one second it is easy to be John Force’s racing daughter? Those shoes are about as hard to fill as the ones Kyle Petty pointedly avoided doing. What exactly has she shown that she CAN’T cut it in NASCAR? Is being the Anti-Danica such a bad thing, she has as much of a chance as success as Ms Patrick does? Should Kyle Busch leave Sprint Cup because he is the Anti-Junior? I bet if Ashley ever did make the leap, she would do it right, starting in the lower classes and working her way up. She didn’t just one day sit in a 4 second funny car and stand on it. With John Force guiding her career, she has a leg up on Danica (or Sarah Fisher or Chrissy Wallace for that matter). I stand by my thoughts, yes, she would make a good fit. She has the right attitude, the personality, the marketability, and a good support system. Can she drive a stock car? We will never know if you have your way. I say bring it on.
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