#3. Ashley Force vs. #2. Sarah Burke

#3. Ashley Force vs. #2. Sarah Burke

Ashley Force

Ashley is without a doubt the hottest funny car racer on the planet. Daughter of John Force, Ashley has proven her title of race car driver is not because of nepotism. The only knock against Force is that she hasn’t joined the modeling world. Fans will have to make due with pictures of her in her racing suit.

Ashley Force was basically unknown in 2005. In 2006, you were introduced to the race community and reality TV community when Driving Force was shown on A&E. Then, in 2007, you were awarded the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series’ Rookie–of–the–Year (Funny Car division). Also, you were awarded AOL’s Hottest Athlete. Has it been a hard two year transition going from the daughter of John Force, to Ashley Force, racing champ and sex symbol?

My life is pretty much the same. It is just busier and I am in the public eye more now. As far as the people I work with and what I do it is about the same. I still race, I just go a little bit faster. Now it is just up a notch. I have more appearances and things like that.

Was Driving Force a one time thing, or will we see you on another reality TV show?

As of now we are not filming Driving Force but that is not to say that in the future it won’t come back. For now we are just focusing on winning races and working on safety ideas through The Eric Medlen Project. Those are our two key focuses for our business. Driving Force was kind of an extra fun thing that we did. Right now with all that is going on Driving Force isn’t something we can fit into our schedule. Every week things come up like photo shoots, interviews or sponsor events and if we can work them in we try and accommodate as many of those as possible.

A reality show that is 24/7, every minute of your life, everywhere that you go, they are with you so that is a much bigger project and commitment to take on. With four Funny Car teams, two A fuel teams and being in the Countdown we are really very focused and are trying to avoid as many distractions as we can.

Driving Force was fun and if we were able to do something like that in the future and it made sense I am sure we would look at it. As of now, no you won’t turn on the TV and see any new shows.

Your father, John Force, is one of the greatest drag racers of all time. He is a 14 time funny car champion and has won 126 races. Was beating him in Atlanta this year the best moment of your athletic career?

Getting my first win was exciting and the fact that it came against my dad made it pretty neat. As far as the best moments of my career I would say getting my funny car license and getting that first Funny Car win are important along with my first A Fuel win and doubling up in Pomona with dad when he won Funny Car and I won Alcohol Dragster. The reason getting my license is on the list is I spent a lot of time on working towards getting my license. It took over seven years when you count all the classes I moved up through. The excitement levels for all four are about the same. They are all pretty even.

It is exciting to win against anyone but it (my first funny car win) probably would have been more exciting to beat someone who was on a different team. When I won Pomona driving my A Fuel dragster I started that race thinking there is no way I am going to win this race because the other racers were running record times but we were consistent and we ended up in the final and got the win. It was one of those days when you don’t think it is going to happen and then it does.

Be honest, he kids you sometimes that he let you win.

No, definitely not. We are both paid by sponsors to win every round that we get a chance to compete in. He had just as much on the line in that round as I did. It was his 500th race and if he would have won it would have been his 1000th round win of his career. For him that was a big milestone that he wanted to accomplish. For me getting my first win was really important. We just went up there and I had a little advantage in that I had the better lane. I had run better the round before so I got lane choice. I knew that right lane was better but we out ran him and we were able to win.

Tell us one thing a general sports fan should know about funny car racing.

It is absolutely one thousand times more amazing and powerful to see in person than watching on TV. Whatever you see on TV is nothing compared to what you actually see and experience at the race track.

Attractive female sports stars, such as Anna Kournikova, Serena Williams, and Anna Rawson, have spent a significant amount of time and energy focused on things other than their sport. It seems like your one and only focus is racing. Would you say that is a fair assessment?

I don’t know about the schedules for some of the other female sport stars but for us we are travelling so much every week almost. We do a lot with our sponsors also and to do a lot of extra things is a good thing. You do get more publicity and media which is important but everyone has to find their own balance. For me I enjoy my time off at home. I look at some of those gals and I don’t know how they do it. I don’t know how there are enough hours in the day for them to do everything that they do.

Each person has their own priorities. I love racing but it is not the absolute only thing in my life. I have other things that are important to me so I try and balance those. Maybe I don’t do any many things as some other athletes but that is just my choice.

What are your goals in racing?
My goal this year as we finish up the season would be to finish in the top three. Of course we would love to finish number one. To make it into the top three considering last year in my rookie year I finished 10th so we have already improved almost double since we are in 6th place with two races left. We’d really like to move up before the end of the year. That is probably my most current goal. I want to win more races. We have come close but we would love to get more wins.

Will we ever see you in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue or on the cover of Playboy?
No, I have a lot of young fans, a lot of kids who are fans of mine. I like to do things that even they can be involved in. Kids can enjoy Sports Illustrated in general but I doubt, really I hope, not a lot of kids are looking at Playboy. That is just not the path that I have taken. Most likely if you see me in photos or magazines I’ll be in street clothes or my Castrol GTX fire suit.

We are covering a wide variety of sports for this post. What type of Athletes do you find sexiest?
I’m getting married this year so I am not really looking for sexy athletes.

Who is your pick for Worlds Hottest Athlete?
Answering that would assume that I watch a lot of sports which I don’t. It wouldn’t be fair for me to name someone because if I am not at a race or watching a race on TV the only other thing on TV I watch is CSI. Sometimes I’ll watch hockey with my fiancé Dan. I don’t know enough about the players in other sports to make a fair pick.

Sarah Burke
Sarah is Canada’s version of Kristi Leskinen. Basically, she is a knockout freestyle skier who gets as much attention for her model looks as she does for her world class skiing. InGameNow is intimidated by both!

Who takes a worse beating, NFL runningback or X Games skier?
Good question! I don’t know how those footballers always get up after they smash! Its insane the hits they take. But they do have a ton of padding on where as we do not. I would say we both take pretty gnarly hits but there are very different. Both feel like you are being hit by a truck none the less!
Tell us about your worst crash to date.

There have been a couple. Over shooting jumps is never fun and are some of my worst memories. A couple years back I was doing a 9 in the pipe and decked it. I smashed and broke my nose off of my knees. That was the 2 days before my competition. I try to forget the bad ones though.

We are interviewing fellow skier Kristi Leskinen. Do you have any embarrassing stories we can bring up? Ah ah ahh Best friends never tell!

So, we ask all of the athletes this question, what type of athlete do you find sexiest?
hmmm Basketball players for sure!! Next to my Boyfriend who is a skier of course!

Finally, who is your pick for World’s Hottest Athlete?
Wow another tough one. Jenny Finch is one gorgeous woman. Oh and if Kristi is on I better pick her too!!

Remember – your vote counts… but so does Jimmy Trania’s from Sports Illustrated. He gets one point, InGameNow gets one point and you, the people, get one vote. Here is Jimmy’s pick:

“Burke over Force: There are two good reasons why.”

MONDAY: Track & Field Girls & Girls Who Kick Your Ass
(1) Amy Acuff vs. Lolo Jones (4)
(3) Allison Stokke vs. Leryn Franco (2)
(1) Gina Carano vs. Beth Horn (4)
(3) Stacey Keibler vs. Michelle McCool (2)

TUESDAY: Girls Who Are Fast & Water Girls

(1) Kristi Leskinen vs. Danica Patrick (5)
(3) Ashley Force vs. Sarah Burke (2)
(1) Bia & Branca Feres vs. Amanda Beard (4)
(6) Katya Meyers vs. Lokelani McMichael (2)