Championship Drag Racing

Fram Autolite NHRA Nationals
Sonoma, Calif.
(Aug. 3-5)

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Gary Densham Force Racing Mustang Funny Car

Reports: Sunday Pre-race

Sonoma, Saturday: Gary Densham failed to qualify with a run of 5.145 seconds, 289.76 mph. Despite his second qualifying disappointment of the season, he held onto 10th place in points.

"There's nothing you can say. It's just really disappointing. I feel badly for (Crew Chief) Jimmy Prock. But I know we'll figure this out," said Densham.

Sonoma, pre-race: San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds insists that he would trade all the individual records he is racking up this season even the single season home run record, for one championship ring.

Drag racer Gary Densham, competing this week (Aug. 3-5) in the 14th annual Fram/Autolite Nationals at Sears Point Raceway, can relate.

Densham has been piling up records of his own since climbing aboard the third Ford in the John Force Racing stable, a 319 mile-an-hour missile co-sponsored by the Automobile Club of Southern California.

Nevertheless, for all the satisfaction that came with qualifying No. 1 for the first time (as he did earlier this year in the inaugural Mac Tools Thunder Valley Nationals), with producing career best numbers for quarter mile time (4.829 seconds) and speed (319.06 mph) and with setting track records at Bristol, Tenn., Pomona, Calif., and Denver, Colo., Densham remains, to a large extent, unfulfilled.

Why? Because after 30 years in the sport, after 240 trips to NHRA national events from Memphis to Minneapolis to Montreal, after six final round appearances and an equal number of disappointments, all the former auto shop teacher really wants is just one time to stand on the podium as an NHRA Funny Car winner.

Just once?

"Well, if I won one, I'd probably want to do it again," he joked. "But, really, just being involved in drag racing at this level has been a wonderful experience. They say a bad day drag racing is better than a good day doing something else and I'd have to agree with that.

"At this point in my career, to be able to come over here and work with John and Tony (Pedregon) and Jimmy Prock is really neat," Densham said. "I think I bring some good things to the program. John wanted to put a car out there that could be competitive but that also could test new technology.

"For years, I built my own cars," Densham continued. "I've always been a tinkerer. Plus, I've been driving these cars long enough that I think I can give the Crew Chiefs some input on what works and what doesn't. It's the same stuff I did before. The difference is now I'm getting paid for it."

As for the man now paying the bills, his relationship with Densham dates to 1975 when both were on tour in Australia. At that time, it was Densham who extended a helping hand to a neophyte driver with big dreams and little else.

"I thought he was going to kill himself," Densham recalled. "It was pretty grim for awhile. A lot of people would have gotten discouraged. They would have just thrown up their hands and said 'I'm beat, I'm whupped' and just gone back to driving a truck (which was Force's previous occupation). But not John."

Instead, Force parlayed his gift for gab, his persistence and his vision into a juggernaut that has laid waste to the Funny Car division for more than a decade. Fittingly, Force's success and his loyalty to those who helped him achieve it, has given Densham a final chance to realize a goal he once believed beyond his reach.