Ashley Force celebrates winning the Funny Car race last Sunday at the Southern Nationals in Atlanta, knocking out her father, John Force, in the finals.

AP / Auto Imagery Inc.

There have been female drag racers before, but none like Ashley Force.

Force, 25, became the first female Funny Car driver to win a national event last Sunday when she knocked off her father, drag racing legend John Force, in the finals of the Southern Nationals in Atlanta.

The 2007 Rookie of the Year was already the first female Funny Car points leader in NHRA history.

Force pushed her Castrol GTX Ford Mustang to 320.36 mph in a winning run of 4.837 seconds, giving her a 59-point lead on second-place Tim Wilkerson from Springfield.

John Force will be seeking his 1,000th career round win this weekend at the O‘Reilly NHRA Midwest Nationals at Gateway International Raceway in Madison, Ill. His 59th birthday is tomorrow, adding a little more drama.

“It’s a great thing for the sport, and for our area to have history come right here just days after she won the first race in the Funny Car Division,” said Lenny Batycki, Gateway’s general manager and vice president. “We just had Danica Patrick win in IndyCars the week before, but Ashley did it at over 100 miles per hour faster in a car that is really just a land-based missile heading down the racetrack.

“And she not only beat her father, she beat her father when it mattered. For her to take that win in such a decisive fashion said a lot.”

Ashley Force picked up her first win in her 27th career race and fourth final round.

The Force family — who gained popularity outside of racing thanks to their television reality show last season — should help move a few extra tickets this week at Gateway.

“We’re very excited and the phones have been lighting up,” Batycki said.

Female drag racing success has come before with the success of drivers like Shirley Muldowney, Melanie Troxel, Angelle Sampey and Hillary Will.

But they didn’t have the Force name, or the backing of the well-oiled John Force Racing Team.

“It’s an exciting time, you know, with Danica winning,” Ashley Force said on her family’s Web site. “There are a lot of women in a lot of different motor sports, and we’re getting our practice, we’re getting our experience and we’re making our way toward those wins.

“It’s a good week for women and it’s exciting for the fans to finally have a woman winner in Funny Car, but I know that it’s the 10 guys on my team who got me to this point.”

And her father.

“It’s good for her,” John Force said. “As a father, I’m proud of her. She did her job. She didn’t do anything stupid on the starting line . . . just did what she always does and that was most important.”

•Tony Schumacher holds a 26-point lead over Antron Brown in the Top Fuel standings, followed by Larry Dixon, Cory McClenathan, Brandon Bernstein and Rod Fuller.

Brown beat Schumacher in the final round Sunday in Georgia, reaching his third straight final in the process.

Surging Jason Line (489 points) and Jeg Coughlin (465) are dueling atop the Pro Stock leaderboard, while Andrew Hines leads the Pro Stock Motorcycle points.

•Mike Ashley has announced a return to NHRA Funny Car competition for the next five races beginning with the Gateway event this weekend.