In the John Force Racing galaxy, Brittany Force always resisted the gravitational pull of drag racing.
 
She always has been the shiny, interstellar particle who occasionally passed through the JFR mass. She drove a Super Comp dragster, then a Top Alcohol Dragster but sometimes disappeared into a black hole of normalcy, of non-NHRA-centric activity.

Image credit: Gary Nastase/John Force Racing

As a teenager, she worked at a local pizza parlor rather than the race shop down the road in Yorba Linda, Calif. She drifted off to Hunter College in New York to try cosmopolitan East Coast life. She didn’t follow her sisters in studying communications, majoring instead in English and adding a teaching certificate to her resume.

Older sister Ashley Force Hood is a bright meteor who blazed across the Funny Car sky and won four of her 92 races before taking a hiatus after 2010 to start a family and run John Force Entertainment. Younger sister Courtney Force, fresh from her rookie-of-the-year season, will return in the Traxxas Ford Mustang Funny Car. Eldest sister Adria Hight, whose husband Robert is company president and the 2008 champion driver of the Auto Club Mustang, is Chief Financial Officer at JFR.
 
But just over a week ago, Brittany Force put her famous father’s universe back in order. She fell back into the family’s seemingly ageless orbit by announcing her professional debut — with her own twist. She won’t carry on in the organization’s 35-year tradition of Funny Car racing. She chose instead the warp speed of a Top Fuel dragster — her Castrol Edge Dragster.

 
Her launch into the NHRA’s Mello Yello Series that will begin with the Feb. 14-17 Winternationals at Pomona, Calif., triggered some changes at JFR. Teammate Mike Neff contentedly has stepped from the cockpit of his Castrol-sponsored Funny Car to serve solely as boss John Force’s crew chief as the patriarch goes for his 16th Funny Car championship.
 
That relieves Neff of the double duty that at once distinguished him and distracted him in two separate stints. It also reunites Force and Neff for the first time since 2010, Force’s most recent championship season. And it has calmed down John Force, who said, “With four cars, you’re always running into each other. I think we’ll be a better team with three cars.”

 
Neff said, “I’m looking forward to racing with John Force again. He is the most exciting guy out there. I enjoy being around him. He is funny and intense. He is a legend, and to be a part of that and be the guy running his car is an honor. There are only a couple people that will ever be able to say they tuned John Force’s Funny Car.”
 
Said Force, “I’ve still got some racing in me, and this year is special, because I have Robert and two of my girls racing with me. When you’re a dad, you want your kids to be involved in the things you do. And to have all four of my girls working in the business is really something that’s hard to believe.”

He said, “Brittany chose to go in another direction.” Then to her he said, “Brittany, you’re unbelievable.”
 
He meant it as a compliment, especially considering she said she was intent on only practicing in the 7,000-horsepower dragster, trying to attract sponsors for an A/Fuel campaign. She said the 330-plus-mph speeds scared her: “I told my dad I’d rather jump off a cliff than drive a monster of a car.”
 
Soon, she said, she discovered her “mastermind” dad’s plan: “I had no idea this was a big trick to push me over the edge, out of my comfort zone and into something completely new.”
 
It worked, for she said when he took her first full Top Fuel pass at Las Vegas last year — in 3.96 seconds at 308 mph — “I was set on Top Fuel. I didn’t want to go back to A/Fuel.
 
“I have never felt more positive about any decision in my life, and I have never felt more on the right path than I do right now,” Brittany Force said. “I’ve always been a daring individual and one who never said no to a new challenge.”

 
Dean “Guido” Antonelli is crew chief for the Castrol Edge Dragster, and longtime Hight team member Eric Lane is his assistant.
 
“I spent the majority of my testing season working with Eric and Jimmy Prock from Robert Hight’s team. I get along with Eric very well.  He has always been so patient with me,” Brittany Force said. “I think we are a good match, and we will teach each other so much.”
 
She had made about 70 test passes prior to the announcement and logged several more in four testing days last week in Florida.
 
“What surprised me the most was how much I loved the Top Fuel car. It’s sooo much faster. When I went down the track the first time, it was so blurry. I had no I idea where I was.
 
“My dad and I had no idea what we were getting into,” she said of her entry into the NHRA’s headliner class. “It’s strange how things have a way of falling into place.”
 
But they did — and now Brittany Force can become her own shining star.