The Force Road Show, Expanding The Fan Base, Winning At Englishto

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The Force Road Show, Expanding The Fan Base, Winning At Englishto

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Unplugged: At the Indy 500 you and John Force showed off a number of dragsters to Indycar fans. How was the response?

Hight: We kind of unveiled the road show at the Indy 500, which is a kind of cool place to introduce it. John and I had never been to the 500 before and to be there for the 100th was special. All the people, the events, everything was awesome. What really blew me away were all the drag racing fans in attendance. John would walk by the stands and they’d go nuts. They’re fans of motorsports, just like we are. I like any kind of racing, Indycar, NASCAR, dirt track, anything with engines, horsepower and performance. All those fans seem the same way and that’s what the road show’s about, to educate racing fans that may never have been to a drag race.

We had six cars at Indy and there are five on the road show, three of our current race cars and a rotation of two old-style cars. In the museum we have some really special cars; a Superman car that’s been a $100,000 winner, an Elvis car, and a lot of racing history, so we’re entertaining and educating fans and promoting our sponsors.

Unplugged: Is there likely to be continued co-operation between the racing organizations when it comes to PR and promotion?

Hight: I hope so. We’ve been to a couple of NASCAR races and Bruton Smith has invited us to come to any of his tracks, so we welcome those guys to come over to our tracks, too. We just want to get people out to the races and to keep motorsports at the top as a fan favorite. In this economy it’s tough, so it’s all about promotion and I think the NHRA is open to lots of things. The more all of the sanctioning bodies work together the safer racing will be and the better the shows will be for all our fans.

Unplugged: There’s a clear emphasis on family and kid’s promotions in racing these days. What do you see developing in that portion of your audience?

Hight: One of the really cool things about having John’s daughters in racing is that they’re very appealing to the young kids. When it was just the guys racing, the fan base kind of reflected that male dominance. Now that John’s had his TV show and with Ashley and now Courtney getting into the sport, you’re seeing a lot more families attend races with their kids. There’re a lot of girls now coming up. They see Ashley on TV and they want to be like her.

My daughter will be with me at all the races this summer. She loves drag racing and a lot of the other racers have their kids along too. Racers for Christ have a lot of activities for the kids and they make friends at the track and that’s what we want to see.

Unplugged: Englishtown is one of the iconic tracks with 40 years of drag racing history. Any special thoughts going into the weekend here?

Hight: This is a good race track. It’s one of the flattest tracks in the country and there’s so much history. We used to come here match racing in the 90’s and they’d pack the place on a Wednesday night. This’ll be the biggest Friday crowd you’ll see all year. It’s like a holiday when there’s drag racing in New Jersey.

This is one you really want to win. My crew member, Shafty, got hurt last week and lost part of his thumb and can’t work this weekend, but he’s here with his family to cheer us on.

And Castrol, John Force’s sponsor for so many years, is headquartered here so we really want a win for them.

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