{"id":2315,"date":"2016-04-18T17:44:41","date_gmt":"2016-04-18T22:44:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=2315"},"modified":"2016-04-18T17:51:48","modified_gmt":"2016-04-18T22:51:48","slug":"john-force-enjoys-busy-weekend-at-grand-prix-of-long-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2016\/04\/18\/john-force-enjoys-busy-weekend-at-grand-prix-of-long-beach\/","title":{"rendered":"John Force enjoys busy weekend at Grand Prix of Long Beach"},"content":{"rendered":"

YORBA LINDA, CA – John Force<\/strong> spent his last free weekend before a grueling stretch of NHRA<\/a> national events kicks off at a race track meeting with sponsors, chatting up racing legends and spending time with hundreds of fans. The 16-time Funny Car champion was easy to spot in his ever present PEAK uniform shirt and white PEAK baseball hat as he cruised the paddock area on Saturday and Sunday.<\/p>\n

\"Legends

Legends Mario Andretti and John Force at Sunday’s Grand Prix of Long Beach Verizon IndyCar Series race. Photo courtesy of John Force Racing<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI wanted to come out to the Long Beach Grand Prix for a couple of reasons. It is almost a hometown race for me since we live just up the road in Yorba Linda plus this is a great chance to see a lot of my sponsors and get caught up with them,\u201d said John Force. \u201cWhen I am with my PEAK Chevrolet Funny Car I get pretty wound up, but at the Grand Prix I was able to relax a little bit and have some good talks with a lot of people like Jim Campbell from Chevrolet and Traxxas owners Mike and Keli Jenkins. Mike and Keli even got me in the winner\u2019s circle since Traxxas won the off-road truck race.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to spending some time with sponsors Force spent a few minutes with some of the legends of IndyCar including Mario Andretti and Chip Ganassi. The 143-time Funny Car winner also got to congratulate fellow Auto Club of Southern California sponsored driver Helio Castroneves on winning the pole for Sunday\u2019s event.<\/p>\n

\"John

John Force and Chip Ganassi at the Grand Prix of Long Beach. Photo courtesy of John Force Racing<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWhen you see the stars of Indy Car like Helio, Mario and Chip Ganassi you have to stop and pay respect. I have so much respect for these guys. I want my son-in-law Grahaam Rahal to do well of course but it was great to see Helio get that pole position in a Chevy,\u201d added Force.<\/p>\n

Force also worked the media while he was at the track participating in a number of interviews talking about both his NHRA season as well as the differences between being a driver and a spectator.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been to more IndyCar races in the past couple of years now that Courtney and Graham are together. I like to watch them but I am not a good spectator,\u201d said Force.<\/p>\n

\"NHRA

NHRA Funny Car driver John Force visited the Grand Prix of Long Beach on Sunday. Photo courtesy of John Force Racing<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Story and photos courtesy of Elon Werner, John Force Racing Public Relations<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

YORBA LINDA, CA – John Force spent his last free weekend before a grueling stretch of NHRA national events kicks off at a race track meeting with sponsors, chatting up racing legends and spending time with hundreds of fans. The 16-time Funny Car champion was easy to spot in his ever present PEAK uniform shirt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2319,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[172,22,44,6],"class_list":["post-2315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nhra","tag-grand-prix-of-long-beach","tag-indycar","tag-john-force","tag-nhra"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Mario-and-Force.jpg?fit=3264%2C2448&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-Bl","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2315"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2322,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2315\/revisions\/2322"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}