NHRA News: Force nominated for Shav Glick Award (12/10/2004)

Force nominated for Shav Glick Award

12/10/2004

John Force

Funny Car king John Force, motorcyclist Jeremy McGrath, businessman Roger Penske, off-road ace Ivan "Ironman" Stewart, and promoter J.C. Agajanian have been nominated for the sixth annual Eagle One Shav Glick Award. Presented by the appearance care products company, the award recognizes distinguished contribution to motorsports in California. Previous winners were Dan Gurney, Wally Parks, Parnelli Jones, Rick Mears, and Les Richter.

Named in honor of the long-time motorsports writer for the Los Angeles Times Shav Glick, a recent inductee into the Motorsports Hall of Fame, the award will be presented during pre-race ceremonies at the NASCAR Auto Club 500, Feb. 27, at California Speedway.

"Being nominated with Penske and J.C. Agajanian and Stewart, the 'Iron Man,' is an honor because those were names you knew growing up in racing," Force said. "People have told me I'm the Penske of drag racing, but I think it must be [Don] Schumacher. They used to whine when I had two teams. What's he got now, 10 or 20?

"But, bottom line, if I am lucky enough to get an award that's named for Shav and be on the same page as Wally Parks and Gurney and Parnelli Jones and the others, well, you can't do better than that."

Force, the most successful drag racer of all time, has won 13 Funny Car championships in the last 15 seasons and was American Driver of the Year in 1996. He owns numerous NHRA records including most championships, most national event wins, 114, most final-round appearances, 180, the quickest and fastest quarter-mile passes ever, 4.665 seconds at 333.58 mph, and best winning percentage among the nitro classes with a .745-percent success rate.

The driver of the Castrol GTX Start Up Ford Mustang has won at least one national event in each of the last 18 seasons and has logged top 10 finishes 22 times. He also owns two other Funny Cars, one driven by Rookie of the Year finalist Eric Medlen and one formerly piloted by Gary Densham.

In addition to the 150 NHRA Funny Car races he and his teammates have won the last 18 years and the 14 series championships and the 11 times he has been named to the Auto Racing All America team, Force's annual holiday car show is the principal fund raiser for the ChiPs for Kids toy drive program conducted by the California Highway Patrol. Moreover, Force and Karl Malone of the NBA joined forces this season to buy defibrillators for all of the city of Brea's police cars (Yorba Linda, Force's hometown, contracts with La Brea for police services) and Force annually is one of the largest benefactors of the Drag Racing Association of Women (DRAW).

McGrath is the most popular motorcycle rider in the world and has won seven Supercross championships. Penske, a motor racing magnate, built and operated California Speedway before selling it to International Speedway Corp. Stewart has won 17 Baja 500s, three Baja 1000s, and four SCORE world championships. Agajanian was the premier promoter of motor racing in Southern California. He operated Ascot Park for 25 years until it closed. He also owned Indy 500 winning cars driven by Parnelli Jones and Troy Ruttman.

The judging panel for the Eagle One Shav Glick Award includes national and California motorsports writers and track executives.

Return to 2003 News Archive
Return to the Home Page