We had a really difficult and frustrating couple of days in Las Vegas this past weekend and while fans were dressed up as ghosts and monsters, we were chasing our own gremlin in our Ford Mustang Funny Car. In three out of our four qualifying runs our car had the same problem occur, causing the car to run on only seven cylinders.

Saturday night we were pretty excited because we had realized that we had changed something coming into this weekend that might be causing this to happen. We fixed that and on Sunday we matched up against my teammate and brother-in-law Robert Hight who I'm battling with for the NHRA Full Throttle Championship.

Unfortunately the same problem happened again and though we got down the track it was once again not under full power. Robert and his Auto Club team had been running really great all weekend long and finished Sunday strong by winning all four rounds and getting to the winner's circle.

This win is crucial to everyone because he has now extended his points lead and with only one race left, the Auto Club World Finals at Pomona, California in less than two weeks, the rest of us have really run out of time to catch up with him. You have to give Robert and his team credit because they really made the comeback of the season, struggling all year long, and barely making it into the Countdown in the 10th spot, and then winning multiple races and moving all the way up 10 spots in five races.

That is not an easy task to do but they managed to and it really is impressive. He's been very close to winning championships before, and though they haven't clinched it yet, they are confident going in to Pomona that they can come out of this with the NHRA Championship.

On Sunday night it really was one of the strangest experiences to be rooting on my brother-in-law and teammate, and yet also knowing that our chances at the championship were getting less every round that he won. At the end of the day, if it can't be my Castrol team that gets it, then I want that Auto Club team and Robert to win the Championship, because that means everyone at John Force Racing wins.

And after the race was over I walked up to the winner's circle with my older sister, Adria, to celebrate her husband's win with her and my niece Autumn. It was nice for a moment, to switch modes from competitive race car driver to family member, proud of what Robert and his team was able to achieve under a lot of pressure.

The toughest part of the day was the frustration in our car, and in the kind of luck that my team seems to have which is none. All year long, our car has run consistently and competitively. We've struggled at races here and there but always bounced back. This is definitely the first time we've had something like this happen with our car, and it came at the worst possible time, at the second-to-last event of the season. It could have happened at any time any of the spring races, summer races, even last race, but the Las Vegas event was a turning point and unfortunately for us, a bad turning point in our year.

The championship is not over yet. We go in to Pomona in second place. The worst thing we could do to ourselves would be to give up which I think a lot of other teams might have done after Robert won Sunday night. However, we don't have the pressure the other teams have because John Force Racing teams are first and second going in to the final race of the year, which is very exciting. Robert proved that anything is possible if you believe in yourself and your team with his comeback.

My Castrol team is going to have to be on their game in Pomona, and there can be no mistakes. We need to grab every point that we can, which means we need to qualify at the top of the pack, which we've done many times all year long. When I showed up yesterday to test, my guys had smiles on their faces and were ready to go. We aren't going out without a fight because we have great fans, too, and sponsors who still believe in us. You can bet our test session is all about getting the magic back that we had all year long. And when it comes to my team, anything is possible.

They've basically told me to hang on because we're going for it. We may be a little bruised and battered but we're going to give it our all in testing and at the final event, and see what this Castrol GTX Mustang Funny Car has got left. When the season is finished Sunday night of Pomona, no matter how it ends up, we know we did all that we could do, tried our hardest, and gave it everything we had. And that's good enough for me.

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Enlarge By Jennifer Stewart, US Presswire Ashley Force Hood's Mustang Funny Car slows in the runoff area during qualifying at Las Vegas.