NHRA.com

September 6, 2007

Ashley Force to guest Monday on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

Ashley Force, the 24-year-old driver of the Castrol GTX Ford Mustang Funny Car and recent winner of AOL Sports' Hottest Athlete poll, will be a guest Monday, Sept. 10, on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. The NBC-TV show airs in every major market following the late local news.

Coming off a solid performance at last week's Mac Tools U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis, where she qualified No. 2 and on race day posted the quickest quarter-mile time in the category (4.784), Force is the first woman to compete in Funny Car since 2000.

Her No. 2 start in Indy was the best ever for a female Funny Car driver, and she already has won more rounds (10) than any of the nine other women licensed in the class. She also is only the second woman to advance as far as the Funny Car semifinals, doing so in back-to-back races in Atlanta and Madison, Ill.

Although she has established her credentials as a candidate for the Automobile Club of Southern California Road to the Future Award as the NHRA rookie of the year, Force has gone through a baptism of fire.

The former high school cheerleader has been on fire and in July in Seattle crashed heavily into the guardwall while trying to chase down her second-round opponent, drag racing legend Kenny Bernstein.

A resident of Yorba Linda, Calif., Force isn't the first in her family to occupy a seat next to Leno. Her father, 14-time NHRA Funny Car world champion John, was a guest on the show in 1997.

In the AOL contest, Force beat IndyCar driver Danica Patrick and softball pitcher Jennie Finch to win the women's championship before burying men's champ Tom Brady of the New England Patriots for the overall title.

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno appearance is the latest milestone for the graduate of Cal State Fullerton. Earlier this year, she appeared on ABC-TV's Good Morning America and was featured in Men's Journal magazine as one of The Superstars of Summer. She is on the cover of the Drag Racing Action magazine currently on newsstands and is one of the stars of Driving Force, the real-life TV series airing on A&E Network.