Ashley Force Hood
October Blog
Since the end of summer and the beginning of fall, we have been to three different states, a Winner’s Circle, the LA Fair, a princess birthday party, a few sponsor appearances, and the costume store…needless to say, it’s been a very random few weeks for me, but it’s been fun!
Lets back up to Indy. This race always marked for me the last hooray before school began again. The race was usually the day before the first day of school so we would fly home on a red eye, go look up our teachers on the school windows at midnight, unpack, lay out our clothes, go to sleep, and then the next morning was the excitement and anxiety of a new school year. My sisters and I would always be so tired after a whole day at the race and five hours on an airplane that we would beg mom to just let us go straight to bed- dirty race clothes and all. But mom would never allow it (I think she didn’t want us going to school smelling like nitro!) so she’d make us shower pick out clothes and pack our lunches so that we would have as little as possible to do the next morning. Of course she always made us take our first day of school pictures out in front of the house, which we hated!
Fortunately that rush of the Indy race and beginning of school is now in the past but I have just graduated on to a new kind of craziness and excitement. When we won the Mac Tools US Nationals for the 2nd year in a row, there was no school to rush home to, but instead a whirlwind of interviews, the press room, the winner’s circle, and the team win dinner, home to pack and crash in to bed, and then up early the next morning, with my Wally, for the dreaded 5 hour flight home! I think I slept the whole way.
I rested up a little once we got home from Indy but there were lots of things to be done. I flew out to a Castrol appearance and back, and then helped plan my niece Autumn’s 6th birthday princess party. My sisters and I dressed as Disney princesses and performed an entire dance routine and had a great night celebrating her special day. The morning before the party, dad and Robert had a great idea to take Autumn to school in the school bus that Chip Foose designed on Overhauling for my dad. All of us surprised her at home and it was so much fun! The bus is amazing and we were glad to be able to put it to good use!
After Autumn’s birthday it was back to normal catching up on work at the shop, editing some video’s in our JFR edit bay, doing laundry and getting our uniforms dry cleaned and repacked for the next race. Soon we were off to Charlotte and then Dallas and though we didn’t win, continued to go rounds and gain some ground on No. 1 position in the NHRA Full Throttle Championship. We are 4th at this time and have three races left! Before we head off to Reading next week I will get a chance to do some more fun stuff here around Orange County. A lot of the time we are on the road and miss out but this season I was able to go the LA Fair at the Pomona fairgrounds where we race (I came home with a fish, and now have three because I didn’t want Nemo to be lonely!) and plan to go this weekend out to Knott’s Scary Farm with my cousins Lori and Rob and Dan. Let me just say I hate being scared but because I love my husband, I will go along. (Plus I made Dan dress up like a guard for the princess party so I owe him one!) It’ll be fun to spend some time with our friends and family here in CA but I look forward to being back with my D Team next week in Pennsylvania and try to move closer to the number one spot which my father John Force now holds. Dad better watch out!
