Ashley Force season preview

Team Castrol Pre-Season Package/Ashley Force

For Immediate Release
ASHLEY'S BID FOR TOP ALCOHOL TITLE
RUNS THROUGH SOUTHEAST DIVISION
Castrol Driver to Compete in Regional Races in Florida, Georgia

YORBA LINDA, Calif. – Ashley Force, the 23-year-old daughter of drag racing icon John Force, will contest the Southeast Division championship this season in a bid to win a national NHRA Top Alcohol Dragster title before moving up in classification to race against her dad in the Funny Car division.

Ms. Force, who finished fourth and seventh in national points in her first two seasons in the Top Alcohol class, will for the third year drive a 275 mile per hour, Castrol-backed dragster for California car owners Jerry Darien and Ken Meadows.

In pursuit of the championship, she will compete in the maximum number of events
available to drivers in the Top Alcohol division eight NHRA national events and eight NHRA regional events. At season's end, each driver's five best results at the national and divisional levels will apply to the championship.

One of the stars of the upcoming real life TV series, Driving Force, debuting this June on A&E Network, Ashley will divide her time this year between the dragster in which she is pursuing the Lucas Series championship and a hybrid Castrol Ford Funny Car in which she will continue to test on Mondays at selected national event tracks.

She will begin her Southeast Division quest Feb. 24-26 at Gainesville Raceway, a track on which she also will compete March 16-19 in the 37th annual Mac Tools Gatornationals. She also will contest Southeast Division events at Bradenton (Fla.) Motorsports Park, March 24-26; Atlanta Dragway, Sept. 29-Oct. 1; and Silver Dollar Raceway (Reynolds, Ga.), Oct. 20-22.

In addition to the Gatornationals, a race in which she was runner-up a year ago, her national event schedule will include the 26th annual Summit Southern Nationals at Atlanta in which she was the Top Alcohol runner-up as a rookie in 2004.

The South Central Division champion in 2004, for which she was named both Rookie of the Year and Driver of the Year within the division, Ashley is a three-time winner on the national stage.

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Ashley Force/Southeast Division
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Her biggest victory came in 2004 at the 50th annual Mac Tools U.S. Nationals at
Indianapolis, Ind., the world's oldest, largest and richest drag race. However, her most
memorable success came later the same year when she shared the winners' circle at the season-ending Automobile Club of Southern California Finals with her father as the first father-and-daughter winners of the same event.

Ashley is the seventh different driver to win at the national level for Darien and Meadows, whose alumni include many of today's professional stars including reigning Funny Car Champion Gary Scelzi and Top Fuel contenders Brandon Bernstein, Morgan Lucas and Melanie Troxel.

"We didn't win as much last year as we did the first year," Ashley said, "but I learned a lot more about driving. The first year, the car just seemed to go A to B every run. Last year, it shook, it smoked the tires, it did everything it shouldn't but it was a great learning experience and I think it will help this year."

In addition to the four Southeast Division events, Ashley will compete in points races at Dallas, Sonoma, Calif., Englishtown, N.J. and Las Vegas, Nev. Her national schedule begins this week with the 46th running of the season-opening CARQUEST Winternationals at Pomona, Calif.

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NOTABLE:
Ashley will divide her time this year between the Castrol dragster owned by Jerry Darien and Ken Meadows and a Castrol GTX Ford Funny Car in which she will test on Monday after selected NHRA national events.

-www.johnforceracing.com-

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