I luv' this show - I am not a John Force fan, but the guy makes me laugh.  The youngest daughter seems a little goofy.

I liked the episode with Scelzi and Force at Hooters. 

I'm sure some of it is staged - When we were at Topeka this year Brittney and Courtney (the Ashleys) were making side-by-side passes for the A&E cameras.  They ran like that three or four times in between the classes.

NoRide:

“Driving Force” is quite the talk in the television ratings world since the numbers for the show exceeded even A&E's expectations. The show did 1.15 million, ages 18-49, in the first half hour and 994,000 in the second half hour. Household impressions were 1.44 million at 9 p.m. and 1.18 million at 9:30. It's the third biggest debut in A&E history. Only "Dog, the Bounty Hunter" and "Criss Angel: Mind Freak" opened bigger. 

A&E already has ordered four more episodes for a total of 14, considered a full season. Source.

Yeah, but the rumor mill has it that Ford wants him to stop doing the show until after the end of the season.  They are really disappointed in his performance so far this year, but he is getting better.

mdw442:

Yeah, but the rumor mill has it that Ford wants him to stop doing the show until after the end of the season.  They are really disappointed in his performance so far this year, but he is getting better.

Really!  You think so!  Hmmm, I really doubt that.  Ford is getting tons of exposure from the A&E show that they didn't have to spend a dime on.  Racing to the Corp. world is not about winning but product exposure and what that exposure does to the bottomline.  I'll give you 2 examples and that's UPS.  With their money why Bob Vandergriff?  Now I like Bob and work about a mile from his shop but why not invest in a topflight team that has a serious chance of winning?  Because they did the market analysis and compared exposure from a top flight team and it's cost verses a starter team like Bob and realized the more cost effective approach was with a starter team where the cost is cheaper.  On the NASCAR side why stick with Dale Jarrett? Because the entire ad scheme of Dale and that truck has been planned from day 1 out since the get go through the 2007' season when UPS celebrates it's 100th anniversary as a company with the "Dale and the Truck" theme.   The idea of winning is secondary to the market exposure of the ad campaign.  You see a race car going down the track but Corp. America see a 200 to 300 mph billboard or a 10 or 15 second commercial as the cameras pan the car in the waterbox, doing a burnout or staging the car.  Calculate the number of households watching from the qualifying shows to the finals and equate that to a cost of running an average 30 sec. spot on average TV and dollar for dollar racing is vastly cheaper exposure wise to other forms of TV or even sports.  This is why Corp. America is coming into all forms of racing in droves.

As for Force and Ford, (don't read this Mopar) Force is "The Champ" and win or lose he will always garner attention and media focus.  And if he's not getting it, he'll find a way to do so as the A&E program should clearly show.  How many of us would be willing to let cameras follow us 24/7 and show our lives to the world?  I know I wouldn't and most racers wouldn't either.  As for his lack or performance, well he took over the points lead (Come On Capps I'm pulling for ya!) at Memphis so I wouldn't describe that as lack of performace.  On NHRA.com Force did say it best in the Memphis recap article:

rrogers6:

My wife is actually watching this show with me and she likes it. The part that I thought was funny was when the doctor told him about going on a diet. The next thing they show him doing is going through a Mcdonalds drive-thru.

Dude - that was In'n'Out - big difference

wkmac:

mdw442:

Yeah, but the rumor mill has it that Ford wants him to stop doing the show until after the end of the season.  They are really disappointed in his performance so far this year, but he is getting better.

Really!  You think so!  Hmmm, I really doubt that.  Ford is getting tons of exposure from the A&E show that they didn't have to spend a dime on.  Racing to the Corp. world is not about winning but product exposure and what that exposure does to the bottomline.  I'll give you 2 examples and that's UPS.  With their money why Bob Vandergriff?  Now I like Bob and work about a mile from his shop but why not invest in a topflight team that has a serious chance of winning?  Because they did the market analysis and compared exposure from a top flight team and it's cost verses a starter team like Bob and realized the more cost effective approach was with a starter team where the cost is cheaper.  On the NASCAR side why stick with Dale Jarrett? Because the entire ad scheme of Dale and that truck has been planned from day 1 out since the get go through the 2007' season when UPS celebrates it's 100th anniversary as a company with the "Dale and the Truck" theme.   The idea of winning is secondary to the market exposure of the ad campaign.  You see a race car going down the track but Corp. America see a 200 to 300 mph billboard or a 10 or 15 second commercial as the cameras pan the car in the waterbox, doing a burnout or staging the car.  Calculate the number of households watching from the qualifying shows to the finals and equate that to a cost of running an average 30 sec. spot on average TV and dollar for dollar racing is vastly cheaper exposure wise to other forms of TV or even sports.  This is why Corp. America is coming into all forms of racing in droves.

As for Force and Ford, (don't read this Mopar) Force is "The Champ" and win or lose he will always garner attention and media focus.  And if he's not getting it, he'll find a way to do so as the A&E program should clearly show.  How many of us would be willing to let cameras follow us 24/7 and show our lives to the world?  I know I wouldn't and most racers wouldn't either.  As for his lack or performance, well he took over the points lead (Come On Capps I'm pulling for ya!) at Memphis so I wouldn't describe that as lack of performace.  On NHRA.com Force did say it best in the Memphis recap article:

"I ain't trying to play it cool here but let's not get too excited about being in the lead by a few points," Force said. "The heat's still killing us. It just wasn't too bad today. I guess I ran a track record there in the final so that proves it. Still, we all know Capps and them will be right there. Tony's coming on strong now. Eric [Medlen] and Robert [Hight] are in it. The fight will probably go down to the end.

 

"I won't lie, the A&E show has had me on overload but I'm figuring out how to put everything aside at least when I'm at a race and focus on what I'm doing. Today was good, I didn't see Elvis at 1,000 feet and we got the win. They still feel just as good as the first one did."

 

http://www.nhra.com/content/race_results.asp?articleid=15246

 

Sure the A&E deal has put a strain on him but he ain't like Bazemore with no chance at all at the champiuonship either so where again is the problem you say?

Hey, I'm a huge Force fan and always have been.  But if you listened to Sunday's ESPN broadcast, even he said that he had a "long talk with Ford" about his lack of performance and how the A&E show was taking up too much of his energy and how he was going to cut back.  His final comment was "don't worry, we've got it taken care of" or something to that effect (anybody TIVO the broadcast?).  In any case, JF himself just validated the rumors.

Yes the show is a huge success and is great PR for everybody involved, but I'll bet he trims down his involvement so he can focus on the race efforts first.