Courtney Force and Alexis DeJoria Bond as Women Racers Show Strength in Numbers

Alexis DeJoria [near lane] races Courtney Force in semi-final round of the O’Reilly Route 66 Nationals last week. Roger Richards/Competition Plus photo

By Gary P Jackson

No other form of motorsports welcomes women racers with open arms the way NHRA drag racing does. Women compete at every level, and while the men still outnumber the women, those who compete are very good. After all, the car [or motorcycle] doesn’t know, or care who is driving it.

Susan Wade has penned a great read on Courtney Force and Alexis DeJoria, two long time sportsman racers who have joined the professional ranks and are in a battle for Rookie of the Year honors.

Courtney Force comes from a racing dynasty, her father is the winningest drag racer in history, and her sister a three time Indy champion. She has dreamed of racing since she was a young girl. Alexis DeJoria doesn’t come from a racing family, but has been a hot rodder and racer most of her life. Two different paths that have brought these tough racers together.

Instead of being sworn enemies, these two are each others biggest fan, and supporter.

From Competition Plus

Not since a few years ago at the Gatornationals has the National Hot Rod Association staged such a widely celebrated Ladies Day at the Drag Races as it did last Sunday at the O’Reilly Route 66 Nationals at Joliet, Ill.

Hillary Will (Top Fuel), Alexis DeJoria (Funny Car), Courtney Force (Funny Car), Erica Enders (Pro Stock), and Cassie Simonton (Top Alcohol Funny Car) advanced to the semifinals.

Karen Stoffer and Angie Smith qualified in Pro Stock Motorcycle. And Grace Howell missed the Pro Stock cut but applauded Enders, saying, “Neither one of us has ever believed that a woman driver can’t be competitive in Pro Stock, and she removed all doubts. This was a big moment, not just for her but for the entire class. I am so proud of her.”

Enders was the only one who captured a Wally trophy, but she did it in flashy style, beating four-time champion Greg Anderson in the Pro Stock final to become her class’ first female to win an national event. It was her third final round at Route 66 Raceway — in 2005, she was the first woman to reach a Pro Stock final round, and she returned to the final against Anderson last season.

The Joliet race is one that through the years has yielded top performances by female racers. In Ashley Force [Hood] and Melanie Troxel played tug-o-war with the top Funny Car qualifying position there. Force was the provisional leader Friday, but Troxel stole the spotlight Saturday night.

This season, Courtney Force is one of two female rookies in the Funny Car class. And they couldn’t be more supportive of the other — except when they line up against each other. Courtney Force went for the jugular against DeJoria (as she was doing against Force) in their semifinal match last Sunday. Force grabbed the right to race Jeff Arend for the $50,000 winner’s share of the purse and the last open Traxxas Shootout berth.

But Courtney Force said she loves having DeJoria to share the ups and down of Funny Car dues-paying. And the newest John Force Racing Ford Mustang driver said the more female the merrier.

Recalling that sister Ashley had another female racer among her competitors and commiserators, Courtney Force said, “It’s kind of funny that now it’s happening to me and it’s with a different female. It really shows that there are more females coming into the sport. It’s not just the same ones we’re competing against.

“We definitely want more females out here. It makes it more interesting. It’s definitely cool to have somebody who’s in the same boat,” Force said of DeJoria. “And we’re both rooting on Erica Enders in the Pro Stock ranks. So it’s definitely cool to have all us females out here,” she said, mentioning that her sister Brittany Force is on the verge of turning professional. “Brittany’s testing in the Top Fuel dragster. So hopefully she’ll be out here with us next year. That’d be a lot of fun.”

(Brittany Force completed her student-teaching assignment and earned her license. But the license she decided she really wanted more was her Top Fuel license. She chose the blacktop over the blackboard.)

Courtney Force and father John Force. Roger Richards/Competition Plus photo.

Although Force and DeJoria aren’t sisters or even teammates — and one’s a 34-year-old single mother of a nine-year-old girl, Bella, while the other’s a recent college graduate who just turned 24 — their story lines are similar.

The two Southern Californians have successful, self-made fathers, and both are rookies pursuing their passions in the Funny Car class with well-funded, deep-resource teams. Force has beaten DeJoria in their only two meetings so far, but the rookie-of-the-year credentials have even up a bit when DeJoria made the Bristol final round against Ron Capps and Force countered with her appearance against Arend at Joliet.

But that’s about where the similarities end. They followed different paths to the job, their fathers play decidedly different roles in their pursuit, and they have noticeably different demeanors.

Force is the youngest daughter of 15-time Funny Car champion John Force and sister of four-time winner Ashley Force Hood, who also qualified No. 1 15 times in her 92 races before taking maternity leave.

Courtney Force is the only one of John Force’s four daughters who expressed a passionate interest, or any interest, in becoming a drag racer. As young as age seven or eight, she often doodled pictures of herself racing her father in Funny Cars, something she has done only once so far — but successfully — in her Traxxas Ford Mustang. She started in the Super Comp Class, then moved into a Top Alcohol Dragster.

Alexis DeJoria Roger Richards/Competition Plus photo

DeJoria is the daughter of business tycoon and philanthropist John Paul DeJoria, owner of Paul Mitchell Hair Care Products, Patron Tequila, and John Paul Pet Products.

She started racing in the Super Gas category in a 1963 Corvette and moved to a Super Comp dragster before running her own Top Alcohol Funny Car team, Stealth Motorsports, beginning in 2009. This year she joined the nitro ranks as part of Kalitta Motorsports.

She was runner-up two weeks ago at Bristol, Tenn., in her Tequila Patron Toyota Camry with crew chief Del Worsham, who won this race last year en route to the Top Fuel championship then retired from driving.

Courtney Force said neither she nor DeJoria has an advantage. “She did it one way; I did it another. We both came up from the alcohol ranks,” Force said. “No one else really can help us at this point. We’ve just got to get in the car, take everything we’ve learned, and put it to the racetrack.”

Read much more here.

Courtney is competing this weekend in Norwalk, Ohio at the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals. [Alexis was there but didn’t make the 16 car field] Espn2 will have full coverage starting at 8 pm [Eastern] tonight.