"Most Over-rated Funny Car Driver????"

[Toejam]

The Crewchiefs make or break these guys/gals! How many Championships would JF have without Coil? Schumacher without AJ? Bernstein/Armstrong in the 80's? Not sure what these guys are paid, but I bet it's more than the drivers!

 

[Ronny Robinson]

Try shoe-horning Coil's big backside into an F/C cage.............If you think anyone can drive one of these things, you obviously havn't spectated enough........

 

[Don]

Five of the last seven posts there Don? Really?

I'm at a loss as to what your arguement is pressing?
Maybe you should re-read the thread before you post the next five of seven posts?

Didn't know there was a limit.

You were the one that wrote that people were writing that Force fell into his championships.

"Well said Richard. Although, it does seem like many here feel he accidentally fell into his record number of wins & championships or ?"

I said I didn't read that and where was the proof.

Basically, a question in response to a comment.

So this is posted.

"Then you havent read all the posts b/c there here"

So I write,
"Come on...if they are here ...produce them
I can read, and I haven't read anyone saying that Force fell into his championships..
Come on....produce 'em"

Nope, not looking for an argument...just someone to tell me where it has been written that Force fell into his championships.

 

["Dr. Dirt"]

Nope, not looking for an argument...just someone to tell me where it has been written that Force fell into his championships.

Here's the best example of all!
Whoa! It was written by yourself to boot!

That is probably true, yet he never won a race until that tuner came along either....

 

[Joker]

Don, the Doc is right. All you need to do is re-read this thread. That b/c Bernstein and Snake left Force won, that he never won until Coil came on, etc etc etc. There are tons of people on this board that think he's overrated. Whatever, thats there opinion. You need to do a search and I am sure you will find 1,000's of threads. Trust me, been here for a while, they are here.

 

[Hiproger]

While I root for various other teams & am not that big of a John Force fan, to say that he is over-rated is just plain nuts. It is my belief that John has done more for NHRA drag racing, & especially the Fuel Coupe class, than anyone in this business. I will forever give him that.
What I have trouble with is the fact that a silly-a$$ question & a set-up answer, meant as an attempt at humor, could get so many people fired up.
Damn, get real people................"HIP"

 

[DragFan2]

Don, the Doc is right. All you need to do is re-read this thread. That b/c Bernstein and Snake left Force won, that he never won until Coil came on, etc etc etc. There are tons of people on this board that think he's overrated. Whatever, thats there opinion. You need to do a search and I am sure you will find 1,000's of threads. Trust me, been here for a while, they are here.

Justin,

Did Jerrod re-open access to all the old threads from the previous NitroMater? Thousands of threads haven't been started yet on the new NitroMater, and maybe not even thousands of posts. I'm with Doc on this one, I don't recall seeing all that many negative posts about John Force, or any specifically stating he was overrated. Seems that he is WELL LOVED by many on this board. Only thing I would state is that John had/has an uncanny ability to rise to the occasion when necessary. I mean look how last year came down to the Final Race of the year to decide the championship when he had 10 first round losses. That would normally (for him) have spelled doom. John & Austin & Bernie are a great brain trust, and the one thing I will say (and it has been brought up tons of times) is that many races that John won, he could easily have been beaten, but his competitors BEAT themselves. Being the champ, and almost always having a good car, not necessarily the best car at each race, his opponents many times (too many) put their cars on KILL and gave the race away. They would smoke the tires early or within the first 660 ft. and John won many a race with mediocre ET's as he sometimes had problems too, just later in the run. Sometimes a consistent 4.80-4.90 or even a mid 4.90 ET could have beaten John, but his opponent figured they needed a 4.70-4.80 ET to win. This of course would be at a good track with cool temps.

Still, all in all, John earned his championships and I don't begrudge him for that. I've just patiently waited for someone or some team to make him work harder for the wins, and last year and this year are a good example of what I mean. Oh yeah, and 2003 when T-Ped won! My best friend and I were discussing football this past weekend, and he is a USC grad and has totally enjoyed their string of victories these past 3 or more years. He mentioned how he loves it when they win a game by 45-0 or some ridiculously lopsided score, and I called him on that as I suggested that a game like that is boring. I lose interest when the outcome is never in doubt, as I prefer hard fought, give & take, competetive games. He thought about it for a minute, and then agreed with me. He said that he too gets complacent when there is no fight left in the opponent. He remembered how USC had to fight the whole game to beat Fresno State, and Notre Dame last year, and the outcome was in doubt up until the last second and the games were gripping. What a difference that makes vs. a game that is virtually over before halftime, or soon thereafter.

So, in essence, John Force should be happy for his current situation, as he now has the most competition he has ever had in the class, and he may not be winning as many races, but he's #2 in the points, and all he needs to do to be #1 is win one or two races between now and the Finals and he will be right where he wants to be. And the fans will be better off too. Having a championship sewn up with 4-5 races to go makes the end of the season anti-climactic and irrelevant.

Just my .02c and change...

 

[Cymon Sez]

I think John is WAY over rated and worked hard to buy all his championships but DSR has made it harder to buy a championship this last couple of years. As for being a great driver I think he rates above average and wouldnt be as dominant as he has been without the help of Coil or the multi car effort.

 

[Joker]

Justin,

Did Jerrod re-open access to all the old threads from the previous NitroMater? Thousands of threads haven't been started yet on the new NitroMater, and maybe not even thousands of posts. I'm with Doc on this one, I don't recall seeing all that many negative posts about John Force, or any specifically stating he was overrated. Seems that he is WELL LOVED by many on this board. COLOR]

Kurt, apparently either I am reading this thread wrong or everyone else is. You said you agree with Doc but not me. The Doc and I agree. Your confusing me. We both said they are here. Maybe not here on the new mater except for this thread but on the old one, there were tons.

 

[Don]

Here's the best example of all!
Whoa! It was written by yourself to boot!

!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!!??!?!?!?!?!?!

Did I write something that is not true?

Many other drivers didn't win until a particular wrench came along.

That sure as heck doesn't mean they fell into something.

You're gonna have to do better than that.

Obviously if that is all you have, then you have no proof, do you?

 

[Don]

Don, the Doc is right. All you need to do is re-read this thread. That b/c Bernstein and Snake left Force won, that he never won until Coil came on, etc etc etc. There are tons of people on this board that think he's overrated. Whatever, thats there opinion. You need to do a search and I am sure you will find 1,000's of threads. Trust me, been here for a while, they are here.

uh, the discussion was in regards to this thread...now you say it is the entire site....Hell, I can find a number of posts where others have slammed basically every driver since Henry Ford

 

[DragFan2]

Kurt, apparently either I am reading this thread wrong or everyone else is. You said you agree with Doc but not me. The Doc and I agree. Your confusing me. We both said they are here. Maybe not here on the new mater except for this thread but on the old one, there were tons.

Justin,

Sorry for the confusion on my part. Yes, both you and Doc/Bobby Miller are insinuating that many on the NitroMater are stating that John Force is over-rated. I guess I missed all the threads about that in the old NitroMater. I really did not see that many people knocking John, but I'll take your word for it. I was just as confused by your statement about searching through all the old threads when we no longer have access to them. If this is the only thread about that on the new NitroMater, then I don't think even this thread is knocking John that much. Most of the people who you feel are knocking John are stating that he may not be that good without Austin Coil primarily, and probably Bernie Fedderly as well. I think that is a valid statement. John has had such a good car for so long that it has helped him immensely to know that when he goes up to the line, he can concentrate on cutting a light without always worrying about his tuneup and whether it will hold or not. John almost NEVER blows the tires instantly, but will further down the track quite often, but that gives him the ability to pedal it and he is very good at that. And yes, maybe the fact that Kenny Bernstein and Don Prudhomme left FC to go Top Fuel racing did help as well. Still, there were quite a number of challengers to his throne over the 10 straight years he won the championship, and the rest as they say is history!

 

[ReactionTimes]

I think most of the "Force bashing" on the old Mater was about the multi car deal. The "dive" conversation came up a lot with Force's name associated to it.

I thought we all pretty much knew that a racer is only half the equation? You can't have a good car on Sunday without a good crew chief/crew. Let's not pick John apart because he happens to have gotten and kept a GOOD one.

 

[Joker]

Justin,

Sorry for the confusion on my part. Yes, both you and Doc/Bobby Miller are insinuating that many on the NitroMater are stating that John Force is over-rated. I guess I missed all the threads about that in the old NitroMater. I really did not see that many people knocking John, but I'll take your word for it. I was just as confused by your statement about searching through all the old threads when we no longer have access to them. If this is the only thread about that on the new NitroMater, then I don't think even this thread is knocking John that much. Most of the people who you feel are knocking John are stating that he may not be that good without Austin Coil primarily, and probably Bernie Fedderly as well. I think that is a valid statement. John has had such a good car for so long that it has helped him immensely to know that when he goes up to the line, he can concentrate on cutting a light without always worrying about his tuneup and whether it will hold or not. John almost NEVER blows the tires instantly, but will further down the track quite often, but that gives him the ability to pedal it and he is very good at that. And yes, maybe the fact that Kenny Bernstein and Don Prudhomme left FC to go Top Fuel racing did help as well. Still, there were quite a number of challengers to his throne over the 10 straight years he won the championship, and the rest as they say is history!

No problem Kurt, I didnt even realize that the old threads werent available to look at but I know there are plenty of Force bashing ones on there. John has earned everything he has and he will be the first to tell you that he owes Coil everything. But just the same as everyone else in this sport. Your only as good as your crew chief in my opinion.

 

[TAFC 5 81]

I did not insinuate Force fell into his championships, he just took advantage of a void (FC was in a slight decline ~1990) and moved to the next level. In the mid-late 80s Bernstein was the measuring stick the FC world used as a guide. Force became that in the 90s (multi crew chiefs and then multi cars). I think GA did that in PS. He worked for WJ and had to know what it took to race at that level, so to move the bar up he used the NASCAR approach. I think the competition in FC today is as strong as ever and Force likes it like that. He may not be the best pure driver out there, but he would make alot of people's short list. You can bet Capps would prefer to beat JF the driver for the title than JF the owner.

 

[Nitrohaulic]

Wondering what would have happened if Bernstein had stayed in funny car longer made me think of the same thing concerning Bob Glidden's many championships and Lee Shepherd's demise. I sure would have enjoyed watching those two battle it out for a lot more years.

I bet a lot would agree with me that John used to have a better knack for interviews. More creative things just seemed to naturally come out of him. Regardless of the content, one thing that gets me is the way he always seems to feel the need to yell at the microphone. If it were someone new, you'd want to tell them to slow/calm down a little. Could there be a relation between his better interviews happening before the multi-car teams, that there's more of a sense of corporate pressure nowadays?

 

[Hiproger]

I think the late Steve Evans helped bring John along by just lettin' him go nuts. He enjoyed those crazy interviews as much as anybody & it showed. He had a way of kinda lettin' John outta his shell so to speak.
Of course Steve helped a lot of drivers, & the whole NHRA organization, along the way as far as I'm concerned. A lot of folks wouldn't be where they are today if it weren't for him. I miss him on every show.
RIP ................."HIP"

 

[Gordon]

I did not insinuate Force fell into his championships, he just took advantage of a void (FC was in a slight decline ~1990) and moved to the next level.

A lot of life is about being in the right place at the right time. Chuck Yeager will tell you he broke the sound barrier because he happened to be there at the right time. There's a veritable plethora of examples of people achieving success because of timing. Conversely, there are examples of people who failed to achieve success because of timing...

I think John's championship run is a perfect example of that. Is it John's fault? No, absolutely not. Did he accomplish what he did because of his driving skills or Coil's tuning? Both. I've read this thread at various stages of its development & it's bounced around a little, but the bottom line is that regardless of "pure driving talent" no driver can win without a talented tuner & no talented tuner can win without a good driver - it's really quite simple.

They both went out on the Match Racing Circuit and raced on every surface in every condition known to mankind. Coil collected all the tuning data along the way while John gained valuable experience in the cockpit - that's teamwork @ its finest.

Does that make John over-rated? Not in my mind.

 

[johnny]

A lot of life is about being in the right place at the right time. Chuck Yeager will tell you he broke the sound barrier because he happened to be there at the right time. There's a veritable plethora of examples of people achieving success because of timing. Conversely, there are examples of people who failed to achieve success because of timing...

I think John's championship run is a perfect example of that. Is it John's fault? No, absolutely not. Did he accomplish what he did because of his driving skills or Coil's tuning? Both. I've read this thread at various stages of its development & it's bounced around a little, but the bottom line is that regardless of "pure driving talent" no driver can win without a talented tuner & no talented tuner can win without a good driver - it's really quite simple.

They both went out on the Match Racing Circuit and raced on every surface in every condition known to mankind. Coil collected all the tuning data along the way while John gained valuable experience in the cockpit - that's teamwork @ its finest.

Does that make John over-rated? Not in my mind.

While agreeing with you, what may make John over-rated is the expectations placed upon him because of his past. It's a different world than it was 15 years ago, and age, rules and tires have taken their toll. John's ability to compete at the level he does, is a testimonial to all the positives he represents and is worthy of respect. Is he, or his team, capable of sustaining the level of dominance they achieved over the past 15 seasons...I think not.

Personally, I'm excited with the promise Robert Hight brings to the table. He's, in my opinion, the Next Generation.

 

[FalconRacer]

I think the late Steve Evans helped bring John along by just lettin' him go nuts. He enjoyed those crazy interviews as much as anybody & it showed. He had a way of kinda lettin' John outta his shell so to speak.
Of course Steve helped a lot of drivers, & the whole NHRA organization, along the way as far as I'm concerned. A lot of folks wouldn't be where they are today if it weren't for him. I miss him on every show.
RIP ................."HIP"

Steve Evans, Dave Mac, and Diamond P !!! Man those were the days!!!