{"id":100148,"date":"2025-04-14T16:18:22","date_gmt":"2025-04-14T16:18:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/uncategorized\/prock-gets-first-win-of-the-season-becomes-first-driver-with-four-wide-victories-in-both-fuel-classes\/"},"modified":"2025-04-14T16:18:22","modified_gmt":"2025-04-14T16:18:22","slug":"prock-gets-first-win-of-the-season-becomes-first-driver-with-four-wide-victories-in-both-fuel-classes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/uncategorized\/prock-gets-first-win-of-the-season-becomes-first-driver-with-four-wide-victories-in-both-fuel-classes\/","title":{"rendered":"Prock Gets First Win of the Season, Becomes First Driver With Four-Wide Victories in Both Fuel Classes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Austin Prock put early season struggles behind him Sunday, re-establishing his Cornwell Tools Chevrolet SS as a dominant Funny Car and becoming the first driver in history to win four-wide events in the NHRA\u2019s two signature categories.<\/p>\n<p>The No. 2 qualifier in the west coast version of an event that originated at zMax Dragway in Charlotte, N.C., 15 years ago, Prock posted the quickest time during eliminations at 3.964 seconds but slowed to 4.009 seconds in the final quad, reaching the stripe just ahead of No. 1 qualifier Paul Lee.<\/p>\n<p>Although the reigning series champ characterized the win as \u201cugly,\u201d he wasn\u2019t about to give it back.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis \u2018Prock Rocket\u2019 ain\u2019t perfect yet,\u201d he acknowledged. \u201cBut it\u2019s heading in the right direction, and that\u2019s what we need to be proud about right now. That was an ugly win but, like I said earlier this morning, if the win light keeps coming on, I don\u2019t give a crap.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In outracing Lee, Dave Richards and Matt Hagan to the finish in the final quad, he earned a bookend for the four-wide win he secured at Charlotte in 2023 while driving a John Force Racing Top Fuel dragster.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m so proud of this JFR team,\u201d said the man who last year broke the boss\u2019s single season qualifying record when he started from the front 15 times in 20 events. \u201cI just love having John Force out at the racetrack. It just gasses you up every time. He told me he was proud of me this week and that means a lot.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m really proud to drive this Cornwell Tools Chevy SS with Hendrickcars.com, PEAK, Powers Affordable Housing and Graham Rahal Performance,\u201d said the 2019 NHRA Rookie of the Year. \u201cHaving them all on board is just so cool.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It was the 29-year-old Funny Car phenom\u2019s first winners\u2019 celebration of the new season and it propelled him into the No. 3 position in Mission Foods\u2019 points behind Lee and JFR teammate Jack Beckman, who suffered his first opening round loss since taking the reins of the PEAK Antifreeze and Coolant Chevy, which this week was flying the colors of Graham Rahal Performance, from an injured Force.<\/p>\n<p>Two-time Top Fuel world champion Brittany Force also failed to advance after qualifying her GRP dragster second in the field and posting top speed of the event at 333.16 miles per hour, well off her track record speed of 338.17 mph.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1600\" height=\"900\" src=\"https:\/\/dragillustrated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Jack-Beckman.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-83421\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Auto Imagery \/ Gary Nastase photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cRough weekend for both Graham Rahal Performance cars,\u201d Beckman said. \u201cThe silver lining is we got to go up and cheer our teammate Austin Prock on in the final round and we found our problem. We\u2019re on it and it\u2019ll be fixed by the time we roll into Charlotte. I expect us to be right back into championship form then.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Brittany, too, remained upbeat despite the disappointing result on a track on which she had won five times previously, more than on any other in the series.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe had two great sessions during Saturday qualifying, jumping us up to No. 2 (in the starting order) and we won a round in the Mission 2Fast2Tasty Challenge,\u201d she said. \u201cHowever, our car smoked the tires in the first round. I pedaled it, and it hooked back up, and it went down there, but, unfortunately, we didn\u2019t get a win light.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1600\" height=\"900\" src=\"https:\/\/dragillustrated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Brittany-Force.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-83420\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Auto Imagery \/ Gary Nastase photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ll pack up and head to the next four-wide race in Charlotte and see if we can win there,\u201d said the 17-time tour winner. \u201cI\u2019m excited to get to ZMax. We\u2019ll be running our HendrickCars.com colors all weekend long, and even though we had an early exit in Las Vegas, I feel this team and this car are in a really good position, and a win is right around the corner.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The victory was Prock\u2019s ninth in 24 starts since sliding into the cockpit of the car previously driven by three-time JFR World Champion Robert Hight. It was his second straight celebration at LVMS, where he beat Lee in the final round of last October\u2019s NHRA Nevada Nationals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-modified-info\">This story was originally published on April 14, 2025. <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dragillustrated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/DI_flat_red-e1711481551475.png\" width=\"20px\" alt=\"Drag Illustrated\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/dragillustrated.com\/prock-gets-first-win-of-the-season-becomes-first-driver-with-four-wide-victories-in-both-fuel-classes\/\">Prock Gets First Win of the Season, Becomes First Driver With Four-Wide Victories in Both Fuel Classes<\/a> first appeared on <a href=\"https:\/\/dragillustrated.com\/\">Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Austin Prock put early season struggles behind him Sunday, re-establishing his Cornwell Tools Chevrolet SS as a dominant Funny Car and becoming the first driver in history to win four-wide events in the NHRA\u2019s two signature categories. The No. 2 qualifier in the west coast version of an event that originated at zMax Dragway in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100148\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}