NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

After earning his third of 16 career Funny Car championships in 1993 and dethroning 1992 champion Cruz Pedregon, John Force began the 1994 season with a flamed Chevy Lumina body and iconic souvenir T-shirts that read, “The Nightmare Continues.”

Force won three of the first eight races of the 1994 season before his Austin Coil- and Bernie Fedderly-tuned hot rod turned on the rocket boosters. Force tallied an insurmountable lead in the points standings with five consecutive victories. Wins in Topeka and Brainerd bookended an accomplishment that no Funny Car driver had done before or since — a sweep of the grueling, three-race NHRA Western Swing.

Force and Tom Hoover both ran 5.232-second elapsed times during qualifying in Denver with Force getting the edge on speed. They seemed destined to meet in the final until Hoover was stopped by the late Chuck Etchells in the semifinals, setting up a classic battle between Force and the driver who beat him to the four-second zone. Etchells, then tuned by John Medlen one season before he went to work for John Force Racing, left the starting line with Force but was outgunned in a 5.256 to 5.472 decision.

Force qualified No. 1 again in Sonoma. He overcame a holeshot by Pedregon in the semifinals to win by a .003-second margin and earn another final-round berth against Etchells. Etchells had the horse underneath him this time, but Force got just enough of a jump on the Tree to win a 5.147 to 5.126 contest by a mere .001-second. Surviving two straight close races gave Force the opportunity to sweep the Western Swing at the following weekend’s event in Seattle.

Seattle was the only event during Force’s streak of five consecutive victories that he did not qualify No. 1. He sat No. 2 on the qualifying sheet behind Etchells. Etchells made the second-quickest run of the second round but was upset by Kenji Okazaki. The final round pitted Force against old rival Al Hofmann. Force’s Lumina proved too much for Hofmann as he put a cherry on top of his victory with a 5.036 that stood as low e.t. of the event.

Force has the chance to sweep the Western Swing for the second time at the Protect the Harvest NHRA Northwest Nationals presented by Lucas Oil after scoring wins in Denver and Sonoma. Throughout the history of the Western Swing that began in 1989, it has been rare for a Funny Car driver to even enter the third event with a chance at sweeping. Besides his 1994 sweep, Force won the first two events in 2003 before losing to Gary Scelzi in the semifinal round in Sonoma. Jack Beckman had a chance in 2007 but lost to Pedregon in the first round in Sonoma. Beckman had a chance again last year after winning in Denver and Sonoma, but his national e.t. record-setting weekend ended in a semifinal loss to Tommy Johnson Jr.