sports stars: ashley force funny car drag racer for John Force Racing

As a Top Alcohol division rookie, she won three of the season’s final five races including the 50th annual Mac Tools U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis, and the season-ending Automobile Club of Southern California at Pomona, where she shared the winners’ circle with her father - the NHRA’s first ever father-daughter winners. Ashley finished 2004 fourth in national driver points.
[edit] 2007In 2007, Ashley Force moved into the professional ranks, driving a Castrol-sponsored Mustang Funny Car for her father's team, John Force Racing.
Ashley Force and her father made NHRA history in Atlanta in April when they became the first father and daughter to race against each other.[3] Ashley won the round with an elapsed time of 4.779 seconds, and a terminal speed of 317.05 miles per hour.[3] She advanced to the semifinals, which tied her for the best ever Funny Car event finish for a female.
In October 2007, at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, she became the first female to compete in a national series Funny Car final round, but was defeated on a holeshot by Tony Pedregon.
[edit] 2008Early in the 2008 racing season, she worked her way to the final round of eliminations in three consecutive meetings: Houston, Las Vegas, and Atlanta. She made her first final round appearance of the year on March 30 at Houston, but lost to Del Worsham. At Las Vegas, she was defeated in the final by Tim Wilkerson, yet became the first female racer ever to lead the NHRA Funny Car point standings. On April 27, 2008, at Atlanta, her opponent in the final was her dad, 15-time NHRA Funny Car champion John Force, who was seeking to score the 1000th round win of his career. Ashley claimed her first-ever NHRA Funny Car win on that day, the first ever for a woman, as she roared to victory with a 4.837-second elapsed time, the second quickest of the weekend in the Funny Car class.
[edit] 2009Force garnered the second win of her career on March 29, 2009 at the O'Reilly NHRA Spring Nationals; in the finals she beat her former instructor Jack Beckman.
Jack beat Ashley in the first round of eliminations at the next race at Las Vegas. She then gathered her fourth career #1 qualifier at the southern nationals, in which Jack Beckman got payback by beating Force-Hood in the final. Ashley compiled her fifth career #1 qualifier at the Thunder Valley Nationals
At the Mac Tools US Nationals in Indianapolis, Ashley won over teammate Robert Hight to earn her the distinction of not only being the first female Funny Car driver to win at Indianapolis, but the first female driver to win in two different classes. She finished the 2009 season 2nd in points becoming the highest women finisher in funny car history.
[edit] 2011On January 25, during a John Force Racing press conference, it was announced that Force Hood would become the President of John Force Entertainment, a subsidiary of John Force Racing which will focus on development of media projects and products. At the same press conference, Force Hood announced that she and her husband were expecting their first child in August, and that she would be on hiatus for the season. John Force will drive her Castrol GTX Ford in competitions for the 2011 season. Mike Neff, a former driver who assumed the duties of Force's crew chief following the sudden departure of veteran crew chief Austin Coil, will take over driving the Castrol GTX High Mileage Ford for Force.
[edit] TelevisionAshley Force was featured with her family on A&E's reality show Driving Force.
[edit] Personal lifeShe has two sisters, Courtney and Brittany, and an older half-sister, Adria. On December 13, 2008, Ashley married the parts manager of the Castrol GTX Funny Car team, Daniel Hood, in Lake Tahoe and now goes by Ashley Force Hood.
Force attended Esperanza High School in Anaheim, CA, where she was a cheerleader. In 2003, Force graduated from California State University-Fullerton with a B.A. in communications with an emphasis in television and video. In 2007 she was voted as the Hottest Athlete by an AOL Sports Poll, beating out favorites Tom Brady and Danica Patrick.
Force Hood and her husband are owners of two American Bobtail cats, Simba and Gizmo, that were featured on Animal Planet's Cats 101 on 18 September 2010.