By John Sturbin, Raceday San Antonio
PHOENIX, Ariz. _ One month after riding-out a catastrophic engine explosion in his nitromethane-burning Funny Car, drag racing champion John Force has been discharged from Barrow Neurological Institute.
Force, 75 and NHRA’s highest-profile personality, has been undergoing rehab for a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). According to family members, the 16-time world champion will continue to work with therapists specializing in such injuries on an outpatient basis in his native California. Force is a resident of Yorba Linda, Calif.
“He finally gets to sleep in his own bed,” daughter Ashley Force Hood said Tuesday in a team news release. Hood and sisters Brittany, Courtney and Adria, and their mother, Laurie, maintained a constant presence throughout the Hall of Famer’s hospitalizations in Virginia and Arizona.
Next phase in the recovery process will be outpatient speech, as well as OTPT (Occupational and Physical Therapy) to address lingering short-term memory and cognitive issues.
A 16-time NHRA Funny Car champion and 157-time tour-winner, “Brute” Force was in contention for another title at the time of his injury.
An engine explosion on Sunday, June 23, triggered the crash of Force’s PEAK Antifreeze and Coolant Chevrolet Camaro SS during Round 1 of the 14th annual PlayNHRA Virginia Nationals at Virginia Motorsports Park in Dinwiddie.
The owner of John Force Racing crossed the finish line at Virginia Motorsports Park in 4.100-seconds at 302.62 mph after winning his first-round race when the engine detonated, sending his car, on fire, careening across the track and into the concrete guard wall bordering the left lane.
That impact pushed the car back across the track into the right guardrail before it came to rest in the middle of the racing surface.
Force, who won two of the season’s first eight national events, was second in points behind teammate Austin Prock at the start of eliminations. Force was conscious and talking to NHRA Safety Safari personnel immediately after the incident. He was transported to a nearby medical center in Virginia for evaluation in the trauma intensive care unit before being moved into the neuro intensive care unit.
