December 02, 2007: About 1000 cars showed up for John Force's Holiday car show. The annual event regularly draws some 20,000 fans to the massive JFR facility in Yorba Linda, CA. With the loss of Eric Medlin early in the season and John's major accident at Dallas, this year a little different but still festive. The entire JFR family was on hand to greet all the visitors and host an amazing assortment of hotrods and other show cars. Also on display was most of the Force car collection and museum.

Here are just a few overview shots of the day from John Ewald and Tom West.

John made his appearance as the event was in full swing and was greeted as the legend he is.

A view of the "showroom" ( JRF is located in an ex-Lexus dealership) from the "John's Bar" terrace.

John & Ashley Force. If nothing else, this has been a dramatic weight loss program for The Champ.

John Ewald took the chance to snap a few while everyone was down at the autograph tables...

This is the signing contingent starting with Laurie Force in the front. John is there talking and playing the crowd, as you might expect. He does it pretty well, we'd have to say.

Here we have Ashley and the Force girls, preceded by Robert Height's daughter, who was pretty much just using up Ashley's handouts. Height is looking on, with Lew Arrington, Jr. in the back taking some photos.

Here is the signing, starting with Laurie Force on the right, next to Robert's daughter. The guy standing is Ashley's fiance, for all those of you who follow such things ...

You can see a bit of the crowd lined up to get their various items signed by the Force contingent. This deal was busy pretty much the whole time, and John kept it going until the line was gone. They did really try to take care of everyone.

This is a look back up the line of folks waiting to get all sorts of things signed by Team Force. I really liked the idea that it was pretty respectful going both ways at this event. Force really has a following out there that is unequaled in the sport.

Another group shot of the autograph session. Next to Robert Hight is Mike Neff, ex-Scelzi Crew Chief who is now the other Team Force driver. He slipped through the cracks on the earlier shots.

Some more happy customers taking away bunches of e-bay material from the autograph session. Here you see Austin Coil and Bernie Fedderly, John's main brain trust, followed by Guido Antonelli, Ashley's crew chief, Tom McEwen, who I am sure you have heard of, Jimmy Shine, the custom builder. I am a little vague on the next names, but following Shine was an actor, whose face I recognized but I never really got the name, followed by two of the "Housewives of Orange County," out there justifying the high divorce rate. On the L you can see Gas Ronda, who certainly doesn't appear to be anywhere near his real age of 81. The two guys on the end are Lugg Nutz and Stattman Caruthers from the SpeedFreaks Radio show.

Here is a shot of Force heading out to the session. I think that his hands much be messed up enough that he couldn't take part in the actual signing. If you wanted to record the audio, you would have had a running commentary going, so we know his throat wasn't affected

In what used to be the dealership roof when John bought this building is now the "storage room of old cars and toys".

If it rolled, it was there. Of course the mobile In-N-Out and Budweiser rigs were huge hits.

The red and white tents way in the back of this shot are where the autograph tables were located. The line wrapped around the building to the right.

It was great to see Bob Severs of Paint N Place fame out and about riding with John Eagan and son Jerry.

We'll close with some Tom West shots of the various wheels on display at the show.

Last but not least, the novel Nurse Ratchet mid engine gasser. The car made a couple of passes at the CHRR and one would suspect it is more of a show than serious race car.