Todd is America’s next top-fuel model

TOPEKA | In his best days, his early days, John Force wasn’t being asked to model designer jeans or chichi men’s fragrances.

Ditto for the other top drag racers of his era. They could install valves in a Chevy big block between quarter-mile runs, and they could tell off-color stories until bleary-eyed bartenders insisted that they be on their way. But sell Swiss watches? Forget it.

J.R. Todd’s black cotton shirt is Sunday-pressed as he pulls up to his top-fuel team’s hauler on a motorbike at Heartland Park Topeka. You could cut flank steak with the shirt’s creases.

His hair is neatly cropped, his soul patch looks as if it has been drawn onto his chin and he’s got a smile and a demeanor that immediately sets you at ease. Got any Swiss watches?

Meet the gen-next of the NHRA.

It’s good looking, it’s articulate and it can still drive the bejeezus out of top-fuel and funny cars.

“I definitely think these kids, like J.R., Ashley (Force), Brandon (Bernstein), Morgan Lucas, they are the future of this sport,” says top-fuel veteran Cory McClenathan. “And I think the future of the sport is in good hands.”

Nothing has been handed to the NHRA’s young kids. Even Ashley Force, who was in prime position to have the best of everything turned over to her by her father, came up the long way, what old-timers would call the right way. Her father insisted that she go to college and start at the bottom.

Todd came up the right way, too. His father drove flat-track dirt bikes, so J.R. grew up around racing. Asked why he didn’t do bikes like his father, J.R. said his father wouldn’t allow it.

“He was too scared” to allow it, Todd said.

So Todd got into drag racing.

“After first run, I was hooked,” he said. “Speed is the best adrenaline rush you can get.”

He went through the NHRA junior program. Then he spent time on Bob Gilbertson’s top-fuel crew. He did that for three years.

He landed a driving gig in top fuel in ’06 at age 24.

Once in the show, he proved almost immediately that he belonged. He won three times as a rookie, twice beating Tony Schumacher in final rounds.

McClenathan said it just doesn’t get that way very often. But he knows why Todd was able to do it as quickly as he did.

“He watches everything,” McClenathan said. “He’s a sponge. Soaks it all up. He adapts.”

This year, Todd has won twice. He won the season opener at Pomona, Calif. Then he won at Houston three races later. That was a remarkable victory because in the interim he had lost his crew chief, Jimmy Walsh, to Kenny Bernstein’s team.

But it may be the time that Todd spends without a helmet on his head that makes him a big part of the NHRA’s future.

“Yes, I guess we are considered the future of the sport,” Todd said. “Me and the crowd I hang around with, Brandon and Morgan, we’re the young generation. Hopefully it opens up some doors and gets new fans involved in the sport and broadens the fan base.”

Thursday night in Topeka, it opened the doors of a local restaurant best known for its scantily clad women. Todd and Bernstein and Lucas were invited to judge a bikini contest. And, he added, he was invited to judge another on Friday night. He didn’t think he’d make that one.

Marketers hope Todd can broaden the fan base beyond the youthful demographic. Todd is the first black driver to win a national top-fuel event. He is aware that his heritage may make him attractive to sponsors and the series. But he doesn’t seem to care.

“I’m just a driver who happens to be African-American,” Todd said. “It’s good to represent the minorities in the sport, and hopefully we can get more involved, but when I put my helmet on, nobody will know if I’m black or white.”