John Force Is Hurt
	Photo By RAP :: Race Action Photography

At the O’Reilly Fall Nationals, in Ennis, Texas during Funny Car eliminations on Sunday, John Force stole the limelight, in untypical Force style.

Force, while racing Kenny Bernstein, crashed, and was rushed by helicopter to the Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas for evaluation, surgery and emergency care.

While racing down the drag strip in the left lane, Kenny in the right, Kenny veered over the middle line, into the chalks. Bernstein’s tires split up the blocks sending them directly across Forces lane into the rear end area of the Castrol Funny Car. The missiles appeared to blow out the right rear tire on Forces car, which in turn caused the frame to fold, and the chutes to deploy. Immediately upon deployment, the chassis separated (as designed). While John Force, was taking a severe beating, hurtling horrifically into the concrete wall, the motor and body had slid out in front of Bernstein. The impact ripped the body from the car, and after debris impact, an unscathed Bernstein endured a wild ride, as his car jumped erratically down the track. Kenny was disqualified. The announcer said that “Kenny Bernstein was a victim” of whatever just went wrong, I beg to differ.

The mangled rear axle and cage housing that John was trapped in didn’t look good, track staff had to pry it away from the wall so emergency medical personnel could get to John and evaluate his condition. He was then carefully removed from his harness and put onto a stretcher and into the awaiting emergency helicopter. Prior to being flown to the Baylor Hospital for further emergency treatment and a CAT scan, a semi-coherent John wanted to know if he won and even managed to bark out a few orders to family and team members, like Robert and Ashley. Initial reports were that he had severe trauma to his legs and lower body parts, with two broken legs.

Later the Hospital CAT scan came back negative and further prognosis revealed John had suffered a compound fracture on his left ankle, severe abrasions on his right knee (down to the bone), a severely dislocated left wrist and some broken right fingers.

Out of this tragedy the Pedregon team received a gift. Cruz ran a single run, due to his semi-final opponent being hospitalized and Tony ran a single due to his semi-final opponent, Ashley Force, electing to remove herself from the competition and race to the hospital to be at her father’s side.

The Pedregon brothers (teammates) competed against each other for the first time since they formed their alliance together on the same team. Tony emerged the winner of the event for Funny Cars and stated that he was dedicating the win to John.

Your thoughts and prayers would be appreciated by the family, team and friends while John goes through the surgery, and the rehabilitation process.