by Rick Shute / North Coast Photographic Services
It goes practically without saying (I did say "practically") that the most publicized racer in the sport (and deservedly so) is John Force. Quarter-miles of copy have been written about one of all of professional sports’s really good guys. And readers will recall that Force had been racing for 13 years before he copped the 1987 LeGrandnational Molson Funny Car title in Canada. In the first of those 13 years, Force actually ran a rear-motored Funny Car, likely no more than three or four times.
In 1974, Force was 25 years old and chomping at the bit to race a Funny Car. He had pressed his face against enough chain-link fences to know that he had to get involved with this, some way, some how.
He saved all of his money earned as a trucker for Garrett Lines and finally bought a big chunk of Roy Maheu’s one-of-a-kind 427-cid SOHC-powered “sidewinder” Mustang. No live axle, just a side-mounted Ford in a drag racing wildebeast. The car used to belong to NHRA Hall of Fame racer Jack Chrisman and was bought by Maheu, who had recently inherited a reported million-plus dollars. According to longtime Force pal and DRO poet laureate Bob Fisher, Maheu wanted to race a “flopper” too, and so he bought the car and Buena Park (Calif.) Yamaha to get things rolling.
As Fisher told it, “Force always wanted to be a driver and just about would’ve settled for anything. Maheu had this thing sitting behind the Buena Park shop and when Force saw it, he went for it. He wanted to paint it black and call it the 'Nightstalker' and that’s what eventually developed. Even at the start of his career, John -- when you could calm him down and relax -- really had some ideas, good ones at that.
“The day before he bought it, he asked me if I had a truck or a trailer that we could load the Mustang on and get it painted. I said I could find something and what I go was this old broken rig with a wooden flat bed and we loaded the car on it. Instead of going to the paint shop right away, we towed that car all over L.A. County showing it off. Force was really proud of it.”
That tow through L.A. was about the only time that poor old Mustang ran forward with any speed. According to Fisher, when they got the car to Irwindale for its debut, they didn’t even know how to start it and had to enlist the services of Force uncle and “L.A. Hooker” owner, Gene Beaver. When it got fired, Force just lurched it to the line, his helmeted head practically resting on the front windshield. When the light went green, it barely got past the starting line A-board and just coasted through the traps. The car was so unwieldy that the track had to bring some jacks down to the top end to lift it so it would turn around and make the turnoff road.
According to Fisher the car never did any better its one or two other appearances, and the car was eventually dealt out. The Mustang disappeared from the landscape after sale, but, as we know, Force did not. 
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