The news came in the manner of these days, with a brief social media post followed by a slower trickle of obituaries that provided very little context. John Force’s eldest daughter, Adria Force Hight, passed away at the age of 56. According to the family, she died quietly in Indianapolis on April 28 while surrounded by family members. They didn’t explain how she got there. And that quiet has been the part that people keep going back to in a sport where practically everything else is loud.
If you read the obituary carefully, you get the impression that the family wanted it this way. private services. A funeral in Terre Haute. A celebration of life in California at a later date, if time permits. There was no mention of a medical condition and no explanation as to whether it was unexpected or abrupt. The hashtag #CancerSucks was added to one Facebook post by ORPtv, and that has been the only unconfirmed public indication of what may have been happening behind the scenes. That might be true. It’s also possible that the family just isn’t ready to discuss it, which is their right.
| Bio Data | Details |
|---|---|
| Full Name | Adria Force Hight |
| Date of Birth | June 4, 1969 |
| Place of Birth | Huntington Park, California |
| Date of Passing | April 28, 2026 |
| Age at Death | 56 |
| Father | John Force (16-time NHRA Funny Car champion) |
| Mother | Lana Starks |
| High School | Huntington Beach High School |
| Profession | CFO, John Force Racing |
| Side Project | Civil Defense Music (artist promotion) |
| Band | Mad Man Billy (vocals, tambourine) |
| Fiancé | Jimmy Collins |
| Daughter | Autumn Hight |
| Former Husband | Robert Hight (NHRA driver) |
| Burial | Roselawn Memorial Park, Terre Haute, Indiana |
| Cause of Death | Not publicly disclosed |
When you look back, Adria’s story deviates from the typical narrative of a child of a well-known racer. She was not a driver. She didn’t try to win over the cameras. She entered the family business after graduating from Huntington Beach High School, when it was hardly a business at all. She answered phones, sold T-shirts out of the back of a race trailer, and learned the accounting side as the victories began to mount. The people in the paddock knew exactly who she was by the time she was CFO of one of the most successful teams in motorsport history. The majority of fans never did. She seems to have liked that.
It’s difficult to ignore how frequently the word “behind” has been used in tributes as the racing community has responded over the last two weeks. behind the scenes. behind the speed and the smoke. behind her dad. Although the framing is fairly accurate and well-intentioned, it also minimizes the work that goes into managing a team’s finances at the level that John Force Racing has been competing at since the early 1990s. It’s not by accident that you become the CFO of an organization like that. You get there by being exceptionally talented and exceptionally open to letting others steal the show.
Other aspects of her life did not align with the racing-executive stereotype. She played tambourine and sang in a band called Mad Man Billy, which is the kind of detail that reveals something about a person without explaining. She was the owner of Civil Defense Music, a small music promotion business. Jimmy Collins was her fiancé. Autumn, her daughter, and her three sisters—Courtney, one of whom is married to IndyCar driver Graham Rahal—survive her. Adria sat close to the center of the Force family, which is positioned at an odd intersection of American motorsport through marriage and blood.
The true nature of her illness might eventually come to light, or it might not. Families make these decisions for their own reasons, which are rarely the ones that the rest of us speculate about. As of right now, the only things that remain are the work she completed—mostly covertly—and the subdued manner in which she appeared to wish to depart. Even if the questions remain unanswered, there’s an honesty to that.