Coil resigns from John Force Racing

Two days after winning a record 15th NHRA Funny Car world championship with John Force, Hall of Fame crew chief Austin Coil has resigned from John Force Racing and plans to take at least a year off before returning to tuning race cars.

"I've decided to take some time with my wife, which I haven’t for the last 26 years, and then I suspect at some point, I'll be hanging out my shingle to go racing again because I feel great, and I'm having a good time every day," said Coil, who also won championships with driver Frank Hawley (1982-83).

Coil was emphatic that his decision had nothing to do with the larger role that Mike Neff has taken in tuning the Castrol GTX Mustang this year.

"God no, I love Neff," he said. "Working with him has been a dream. He's a jewel and added what we've been missing lately. I absolutely like working with Neff and Bernie [Fedderly] and Jimmy Prock and 'Guido' [Dean Antonelli]; they'll all great guys, and there's no problem with anybody there. I'm just not totally happy with the situation since Force has reorganized because of the economy, so I've decided to take a little time for myself.

"The working environment is fine. It takes a lot of things to make you happy, and some things just aren’t making me happy, and I couldn’t pick a better moment to do this than after what happened this weekend.

"I haven't had a lot of time to do things that are on my bucket list, so I'm going to take some time and do those things. Then I'll hang my shingle out again and see what's available because I imagine I'll be bored with screwing off after a while."

Coil joined the Force team in 1985 and has been responsible for all 132 of Force's wins and all 15 championships, including nine of 10 in the 1990s and 10 straight from 1993 through 2002.

After the two-time championship-winning Chi-Town Hustler team began to be pulled apart by numerous sponsorship and personnel decisions, Coil took up the offer from Force, who had yet to find the winning magic.

"I didn’t really know anything about John, but I needed a paycheck and thought I'd better go see how this works out, and it worked out pretty well," he said. "It took a while for me to learn how to work in a different environment where you were answering to sponsors. John was a very capable driver but just didn't really know what he could do, but he learned real good. Of course, in those early days, we didn’t have a lot of money, and there'd be a screaming fit if I needed a new crankshaft, and now we have 40 of them on the shelf."

Coil listed quite a few highlights with Force. "That first championship was pretty good, and winning the first race [2008 Topeka] after John had come back from being dead, and [the 2010] championship after him nearly being dead was a remarkable comeback," he said.

Coil's bucket list includes trips to Europe – among them a motorcycle ride across the Alps – and helping his wife, Lisa, in her racing career.

"I don’t want a job right now and will probably want to sit out all of next year and look at 2012," he said. "If I go back to racing, it would have to be with someone who had plenty of money and the desire to hire lots of people. The only other thing I could see myself doing is looking at nostalgia cars because my wife wants to drive, and if I find an opportunity with a nostalgia guy that can afford to do it right, I think it might be fun to go play with one of those on some weekends. If I could find a situation where my wife could drive and I could tune, I would be amused to try to give it a shot and see if I could run with ol' [Steve] Plueger.

"It's kind of sad for me in a way because we have such a good team in place, because all of the crew guys are just fabulous – I think there are two or three guys on our team that will grow into being crew chiefs like 'Guido' did if they stay in it -- but I've decided I don’t want to be there anymore, but I imagine they'll carry on OK.

"Besides, how many people stay married for 26 years and think all's well?"

Force was not immediately available for comment.

That was a shocker !

And DSR removed John Medlin from crew chief duty on the NAPA car.

Ace

He'll be back....with much larger paychecks.

HMMMNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN.
I take my hat off to Austin Coil. One of the best IMO. Force surely wouldnt be anywhere without him.

Will be interesting for sure.