American motorsport has many famous family names, and two of its most formidable dynasties in recent years have been the Rahals in IndyCar and the Forces in drag racing.
The two became one when veteran IndyCar Series racer Graham Rahal, the 35-year-old son of 1986 Indy 500 winner Bobby, married Courtney Force – the now-retired (but hugely successful) drag racing daughter of NHRA legend John.
The Force family’s world was rocked recently when John – the 16-time NHRA Funny Car champion – suffered a traumatic brain injury in a horrendous 300mph fiery crash at Virginia Motorsports Park on 23 June.
After being airlifted to hospital, having also suffered a broken sternum and a right wrist injury, 75-year-old Force spent several days under heavy sedation in intensive care before being moved to an acute neuro care unit.
Following 15 days in hospital in Virginia, Force was released to fly to a neurological rehab center. A statement from his team revealed that he continues to deal with “cognitive and behavioural symptoms” of his injury, and that he is now conversing with staff and his family but is “still prone to periods of confusion”.
No timetable has been set for his rehab, and he remains in the facility at the time of writing.
Of course, racing drivers are well aware of the dangers of their profession, and six-time IndyCar race winner Graham was very close to Justin Wilson, his former team-mate, who was killed when hit by debris in a crash at Pocono in 2015.
Rahal, who has two children with Courtney, spoke candidly this week about the repercussions of Force's crash on their extended family group.
“He is improving, and that's all we can ask for,” said Rahal, who revealed he watched the crash live on TV while his wife was napping. “It was early morning out in California. My girls were running her ragged.
“When I saw it, I immediately went to her and said, ‘hey, you should probably wake up. You should probably look and see what's going on here.’”
Force’s accident was terrifying, as his car exploded in flames just after completing a 302mph run before slamming into concrete barriers on either side of the track.
The ebullient Force has won a total of 157 Funny Car events in his storied racing career, which began in 1978, and he is a 22-time champion car owner.
“Unfortunately, I've seen a lot of crashes in NHRA,” Rahal added. “With Courtney's explosion in 2017 and Brittany [Force’s other highly successful racing daughter] had hers, and John has had a lot over the last five years or so, but you know when it's different. You can see it. We all saw it.
“It's hard because at that stage the reality was that we didn't know anything. Laurie, my mother-in-law, was with me. So, we didn't know anything.
“There was just so many questions to be asked about what's the condition. It wasn't until really a day, day and a half later that we started to get some clarity on what it was.
“But this is racing. As much as I hate to be tone deaf to it, because I'm not, these things happen. I can tell you that… this is the truth. I've never said it in a public setting like this, but when we lost Justin Wilson, when we lost Dan [Wheldon], it was hard.
“When we lost Justin Wilson, he was a very close friend of mine, and it took me years to kind of move past the mental side of sitting in a car, particularly at Indianapolis or at a superspeedway and not having it flash through – like I said, I've never told anybody this, but not have some sort of flash through my mind about Justin and those sorts of things.
“On that given Sunday with John, it was hard. But you've got to do what you've got to do and go out there, and then obviously from there our focus was just to get the girls to him as fast as we could, get all of his daughters and get Laurie [Force’s wife] out there and get him the care that he needed.”
Something that has complicated family matters is Graham’s intense IndyCar schedule, which this weekend has a double-header in Iowa as the middle leg of three races in a row – last weekend’s Mid-Ohio road course, Iowa’s short oval and the streets of Toronto.
Combined with his wife being at her father’s bedside, that’s meant plenty of unscripted family juggling across the summer so far.
“We're all hanging in there,” he said. “It's been a lot of teamwork, frankly. I've had very little time to be with my wife and with the kids. She's been off in Richmond. Obviously, I've been doing dad duty.
“I came back from Mid-Ohio, and we basically had a day and a half before I left for Iowa. Everybody is hanging in there. Everything that they've said in the statements is accurate, which is that there's a long, long road ahead.
“Laurie has been there ever since. Courtney is coming back. Brittany is back out there in Richmond. They're going to have to rotate on and off for a while. So, we'll see what it is in the future.
“Dr. Vargas, who was IndyCar’s neurosurgeon, helped us a lot. He's been tremendous to get ideas and get help from. We've been very blessed to have their support to get John to the place that he needs to go and get the help he needs.
“Certainly excited about his prospects. He is improving, and that's all we can ask for. There's a long road ahead.”
