Read two reports teh internets that John Medlen is leaving John Force Racing before the next event, the Gatornationals, to go to work at another Brownsburg, Indiana shop. He will be employed by Don Schumacher Racing as the crew chief on the Matt Hagan DieHard Funny Car.

I never would have thought Medlen would leave JFR. Among the things Medlen has done at JFR:
- Developed the new Ford Boss 500 fuel engine that is currently in the frame rails of the JFR cars
- Developed the chassis that the JFR cars use.
- Developed the two-hole fuel injectors that the John Force and Robert Hight cars use.
- Headed up the Eric Medlen Project in Brownsburg, which is responsible for safety development.
- Designed and built the supercharger and clutch dynos in the JFR shop.

He was also instrumental in developing the new funny car cage design and safety features now in place.

He is working on developing a wheel retention system, alongside DSR's Lee Beard. I am guessing that is where the opportunity to actually get back to the track and tune a funny car came from. Ever since Force parked the 4th Mike Neff funny car and made Neff the co-crew chief on his own car, that pretty much relegated Medlen and Bernie Fedderly to the sidelines, with Medlen pretty much in the shop.

That is really surprising that he left, but I guess you gotta do what you gotta do. Could be he was feeling constricted by being in development all the time

Yeah, I've read that he wanted to be tuning a car. There was just no room at JFR, and I believe he was a bit worried about Force's ability to secure the funding for more cars. What he said about admiring Don Schumacher's ability to secure funding and grow his team in this economy kind of said that.