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National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) star Ashley Force Hood formally announced Tuesday that she is pregnant and will take a "temporary hiatus" -- sitting out the 2011 Full Throttle drag racing championship.

This will be the first child for the two-time NHRA U.S. Nationals champ Hood, 28, and her husband, Dan. Force Hood's father, 15-time NHRA Funny Car champ John Force, announced that 2008 Rookie of the Year Mike Neff will return to the cockpit to fill in for Hood this season in the John Force Racing Mustang. Dan Hood will be his tuner.

In addition to Force Hood's news, her father announced that 2009 Funny Car champ Robert Hight has been promoted to President of John Force Racing, which has won 17 of the last 21 NHRA Funny Car titles. Force will hold the title of CEO.

"This past November, after watching my dad clinch his 15th championship, Dan and I decided we would try to start a family,'' said Force Hood, who will take over as president of John Force Entertainment during her racing sabbatical.

"We felt that if God wanted it to happen, it would happen. Well, God didn't waste any time and I am pregnant and due at the end of the summer.''

Force said she still plans on representing her sponsors this season and will work closely with your younger sister Courtney, who is planning to make her NHRA pro class debut this season.

 

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John Force won an unprecedented 15th National Hod Rod Association Funny Car championship at Pomona, Ca., Sunday, coming back from serious injuries in 2007 to win his first title since 2006.

Force, 61, clinched the title in the quarterfinals after points leader Matt Hagan was defeated in an upset by Bob Tasca. Force then went on to the win the race as well, his sixth victory of the year.

He is the oldest champion in NHRA history, but his career was jeopardized by the bad crash in Dallas in 2007 that left him with injuries that took him two years to fully recover from.

The NHRA also crowned its youngest champion Sunday -- 20-year-old Pro Stock Motorcycle rider LE Tonglet.

Larry Dixon clinched his third Top Fuel championship Sunday. It was his first since he won back-to-back titles in 2002-03. Antron Brown was the top fuel winner in the race.

Hagan came into the event 38 points ahead of Force, but after Hagan's first-round loss, Force needed to win two rounds, and he won those with two strong runs.

 

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John Force has no trouble pinpointing his life-changing experience, even if he can't remember it.

"God woke me up at 1,000-feet in Dallas, Texas, and he crushed me with a hammer,'' the drag racing legend explains of a horrific 2007 accident at the Texas Motorplex.

"Nearly getting killed was the best thing that ever happened to me.''

As with most things in Force's technicolor life, the accident was spectacularly frightening and especially cruel coming in a season where his young protege and teammate Eric Medlen had already been killed and his daughter, Ashley Force-Hood survived a terrifying accident.

Force was airlifted from Dallas that October afternoon with serious injuries and here he is less than three years later -- at age 60 -- leading the National Hot Rod Association's Funny Car championship -- its most competitive division -- as the NHRA holds its version of the "Daytona 500" this weekend, the U.S. Nationals.

It is the first of six races in the NHRA's "Countdown to 1" playoffs to crown the season champ. It would be an unprecedented 15th series title for Force completing one of the most remarkable comeback stories in auto racing and providing the exclamation point on a racing resume that will never be equaled.

But as feel-great as this feel-good story is, it's not history Force seeks. It's redemption.

"What hurt the most after that accident, was having people you raced, look at you and feel sorry for you,'' Force said.

 

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