Story By: JERRY BONKOWSKI / JOHN FORCE RACING – LAS VEGAS, NV – Austin Prock made history Saturday at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway where he and John Force Racing teammate Brittany Force will start their respective cars from the No. 1 qualifying positions Sunday in the 24th NHRA Nevada Nationals.
In driving his Cornwell Tools Chevrolet Camaro SS Funny Car to the top of the order for the 14th time this season, Prock broke the 28-year-old single season record for No. 1 starts set by boss and mentor John Force who, after four months of rehab for injuries suffered in a June 23rd crash, was among those applauding the milestone from trackside.
“Hey, good start to the second to last race of the year,” said the Funny Car rookie. “Ended up No. 1 qualifier, got one box checked off to start the weekend and set a record. So, (I’ve) got a good Cornwell Tools Camaro going into Sunday.
“We’ve just got to do our job tomorrow,” he said. “Just keep racing our lane and hopefully we’ll have a nice, long race day and walk out of here with a (bigger) point lead.”
After a solid 3.843, 333.33 mile per hour run that earned him the provisional No. 1 spot on Friday, the 29-year-old Prock improved to 3.817 Saturday, just .001 of a second off the LVMS track record set by his predecessor in the Cornwell Camaro, John Force Racing president Robert Hight.
It’s the third straight race in which Prock has broken 3.820 seconds following quickest of the event performances of 3.814 seconds in the NHRA Midwest Nationals at St. Louis and 3.813 seconds in the NHRA Texas Fall Nationals. The 3.813 is the quickest time by a Funny Car since 2017 when Hight set the current national record at 3.793 seconds.
As for Brittany, she too improved from Friday, when she and her Chevrolet Accessories Top Fuel dragster were No. 1 at 3.675 seconds, to Saturday, when they stopped the timers in 3.660 seconds, their quickest run of the season and just a tick off the 3.652 second track record they set in 2019. With a 3.674 in the final session, the 16-time tour winner gobbled up seven of the maximum 12 available Top Fuel bonus points.
“We thought we could step it up from yesterday a bit,” she said, “and we did. (That 3.660 was a) killer run. It’s been a good weekend for this Chevrolet team, a strong (qualifying) performance (with) three out of the four runs in the high 60s.
“We feel confident going into tomorrow,” said the 16-time tour winner. “Everybody wants to do well for Chevy, HendrickCars.com, Monster Energy, Cornwell Tools, and because my dad’s back this weekend with us all.”
Sunday will be the 51st time in her Top Fuel career that the former Rookie-of-the-Year has started from No. 1; the third time she has done so in her last four appearances in the Nevada Nationals, a race she won from No. 1 in 2022.
She and Prock together have been No. 1 at the last two events and at three of the last seven. Nevertheless, the two-time Top Fuel World Champion and national record holder remains winless over the last two seasons, a victory drought she and crew chiefs David Grubnic and John Collins hope to address Sunday.
If not for Prock’s performance, the best Funny Car effort during qualifying would have been that of two-time World Champion “Fast Jack” Beckman and the PEAK Antifreeze and Coolant Camaro. The PEAK blue Chevy in which Force won two times earlier this year will start Sunday from the No. 2 spot, it’s highest qualifying position in the seven races Beckman has driven it in relief of the sport’s all-time biggest winner.
After fading all the way to No. 5 in a final qualifying session delayed by a lengthy track cleanup, the former Super Comp World Champ (2003) blazed to a time of 3.821 seconds at 330.41 mph which once again was second best of the day only to Prock’s 3.817. As the only driver close enough to the leader to realistically still challenge for the title, Beckman will start Sunday 148 points behind.
“I’d call that a perfect Friday and Saturday for JFR,” said the 34-time Funny Car event winner. “I was listening to Alan Reinhart on the PA (and) he announced that, when we were getting ready to start, we were fifth (but) I knew we could run better. I knew it. But, knowing that you have the ability and the car and the team to do it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to (happen) out on the racetrack.
“By halftrack, this thing was shoving me in the trunk,” he beamed. “(That’s a) career best ET for me (and) we still can pick away at a couple things and get our mile per hour up higher, which will give us a little bit more ET but, for the JFR Funny Cars, our goal for Sunday is to race each other, because the only time that’s going to happen is in the final round.
“If (Prock and the Cornwell team) keep running the way they do and seal the championship, they earned it but, if they stumble and we stay on this (pace), it’s going to get exciting in the late rounds at Pomona (in the season-ending In-N-Out Burger Finals in two weeks),” he said.