It's the end of an era in NHRA. Sixteen-time Funny Car champion John Force has announced that he is retiring after a Hall of Fame career.
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"It's time for me to retire," Force said in a video on Thursday while noting that he has been under doctor's care for the past year. "And it all made sense to me even though that I had medical stuff that I needed to address. Do I want to get back in the car and get hit in the head? And I don't."
John Force Announces Retirement pic.twitter.com/4MOzgVdgxC
— John Force Racing (@JFR_Racing) November 13, 2025
Force is an icon of NHRA. He has essentially been the face of the series while winning 16 Funny Car titles as a driver and nearly two dozen titles as a team owner.
Force was the first driver to reach 100 wins, which he captured en route to his record 157 events wins. This includes two wins last season, which put him second in the standings while in his mid-70s.
This retirement marks the second for the Force family. His daughter, Brittany, also recently announced that she will step away from NHRA to focus on starting a family.
As Force explained in his retirement video, he had multiple reasons for choosing this time to step out of the dragster and move into the next chapter of his life. One big reason is that he has grandchildren on the way. Another is that he doesn't want to get hurt.
Shout out to John Force upon his retirement. Nobody has ever better embodied what it meant to drive a race car at 300 mphpic.twitter.com/32pZ4fBd1r
— nascarman (@nascarman_rr) November 14, 2025
"I've said it many times I'm going to stay in the car until my race car gets me, and I always meant that," Force continued. "But I've been hurt really bad."
This incident that Force referenced occurred in June 2024 at Virginia Motorsports Park. His Funny Car suffered a catastrophic engine failure, which sent his race car across the track and into both guardrails.
Medical professionals transported Force to a local hospital and into the neuro intensive care unit. He remained there for several days before being moved to the acute neuro care unit.
After his release from the Virginia hospital on July 9, he took a flight to Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix. He remained there until July 23 before heading to California for outpatient treatment. He has remained out of the car since this crash while continuing to recover from this traumatic brain injury.
