The veteran driver discusses legacy as famous family names step away.
Brittany Force has vacated her NHRA Top Fuel seat. Marco Andretti has left IndyCar after 20 years of competition. All the Unsers have stepped away or passed away. And Dale Earnhardt Jr. isn’t racing, at least not at the moment.
So with no Forces, no Andrettis, no Unsers, and no Earnhardts in the premier American motorsports series, 20-year IndyCar mainstay Graham Rahal—husband of former NHRA Funny Car racer Courtney Force—vowed that the Force and Rahal names will continue in the mix.“It weighs a little heavy on me with my end sort of being near, too,” Rahal, whose father Bobby Rahal earned IndyCar’s championship three times and won the Indianapolis 500 40 years ago this May, said. “It is an interesting time to build up these future names. With Brit and everything going on there, too, it’s definitely an interesting dynamic for the family, for our family, for them, for the Forces.“It’s a bit of a weird time. It’s weird for them to think about all the daughters. Nobody’s racing. Does Big Mama go to race? Does she not? This is unfamiliar territory for all of us,” he said.“I guess I’m the only one left,” Rahal said. “Courtney, every time I tell her that I’m thinking about retiring, the one person that’s against it is my wife, big-time. I tell her she’s quite selfish when she tells me that. She feels that, ‘Man, what do we have left? Nobody else is in it anymore.’ It’s so different.“But at the end of the day,” the six-time IndyCar winner, said, “I tell them, and I would say the same here , we’re always going to be here. We’re always going to be involved. I don’t see the Rahals not being involved or the Forces not being involved, in some capacity, in some way, as one big family in two separate teams, whatever, I don’t know.”He said, “I think it’s important that our name stay involved in the sport, particularly in drag racing. Drag racing is not the same without John Force. I mean, that is just the cold, hard truth. The girls have to dig in and be more involved. I think they'll do that. You’ll see a presence there.”John Force, the 16-time NHRA Funny Car champion and 157-time winner, remains owner of a three-car Funny Car and single Top Fuel operation that has claimed a sport-best 24 series crowns. Courtney Force retired with 12 race victories, and her older sister Brittany has 19 victories and two titles. Force Hood won four Funny Car trophies.
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