Austin Prock continued his red-hot ways Saturday, leading John Force Racing in the final day of qualifying for Sunday\u2019s 4-Wide Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.<\/p>\n
Having switched to Funny Car for the first time in his career to start this season, Prock continues to dominate qualifying in the class, earning his third No. 1 qualifier in the first four races of the season.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s also moved into the No. 1 position in the Funny Car points standings.<\/p>\n
The Lansing, Mich., native then doubled up by winning this week\u2019s edition of the Mission #2Fast2Tasty NHRA Challenge, a season-long series of races-within-a-race that was worth an extra $10,000 for Prock and his Cornwell Tools Chevrolet Camaro SS Funny Car crew.<\/p>\n
Prock now hopes to make it two winning weekends in a row, as he won his first-ever NHRA \u201cWally\u201d Funny Car winner\u2019s trophy in last Sunday\u2019s race in Phoenix.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt gives you a lot of confidence coming into Sunday morning running like we are,\u201d Prock said. \u201cSo I\u2019m chomping at the bit to get into the first round tomorrow and hopefully we can go three more (rounds to win).\u201d<\/p>\n
Because it is the 4-Wide Nationals, there are only three rounds of eliminations as opposed to the usual four rounds at traditional two-lane races.<\/p>\n
Prock had two outstanding runs Saturday. In the morning session, he moved up from the provisional No. 2 qualifier to No.1 with a run of 3.904 seconds at 321.42 mph.<\/p>\n
Then in the final qualifying session of the weekend, Prock recorded a run of 3.915 seconds at 326.95 mph.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really cool to get the first (#2Fast2Tasty), that\u2019s pretty special,\u201d Prock said. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty crazy. I\u2019ve been in a handful of these things and never been able to get it done but we did the job today.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just had a new aim, a new focus and it worked with two pretty stellar lights (at the starting line) today and we need to keep that up tomorrow for sure because we\u2019re going to have the best conditions that we\u2019ve seen all weekend. The track\u2019s going to be the most even and you\u2019re going to see a lot of great runs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe always love competing and it does help that you kind of get in that zone. Hopefully, I didn\u2019t waste any of it today for tomorrow, so we\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis team\u2019s had a lot of success here in the past and they\u2019re showing it again. So I\u2019ve just got to keep being a sponge, keep learning and keep doing the best I can and I know this team\u2019s going to give me an awesome car.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prock faces Jeff Diehl, Blake Alexander and Alexis DeJoria in the first round on Sunday.<\/p>\n
But Prock\u2019s accomplishments Saturday weren\u2019t all for John Force Racing.<\/p>\n
Team owner John Force qualified No. 2 with two stout runs himself. In the morning, the driver of the PEAK Antifreeze & Coolant Chevrolet Camaro SS Funny Car covered the 1,000-foot drag strip in 3.938 seconds at 328.06 mph.<\/p>\n
Then in the afternoon session, Force improved on his previous ET with a run of 3.908 at 326.79 mph.<\/p>\n
\u201cProck ran good and did his job,\u201d Force said. \u201cBrittany qualified up there and I\u2019m up there finishing second for PEAK and Chevy, that\u2019s always important. \u2026 No one knows the 4-wide better than me. I won the inaugural one in Charlotte.\u201d<\/p>\n
Force\u2019s first-round quad matchup will be with Matt Hagan, Cruz Pedregon and Jason\u00a0Rupert.<\/p>\n
In Top Fuel, Brittany Force will start fifth in Sunday\u2019s eliminations.<\/p>\n
In a unique Saturday morning session, Force was one of three female drivers \u2013 the others were Krista Baldwin and Jasmine Salinas \u2013 that faced each other. Force moved up from the provisional No. 5 to No. 3 with a dominating run of 3.799 seconds at 332.26 mph.<\/p>\n
Force came back with an even stronger outing in Saturday afternoon\u2019s final session, piloting her Monster Energy Top Fuel dragster with a run of 3.787 seconds at 333.66 mph. But she still got shuffled back from No. 3 to the No. 5 starting position, where she will start Sunday\u2019s eliminations from.<\/p>\n
Force will face Billy Torrence, Jasmine Salinas and Josh Hart in the first round of eliminations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel good,\u201d Force said. \u201cLooking at our ladder, we\u2019re sitting in a good position, qualified No. 5. We even stepped it up a little bit on that last run which was huge for this team.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re looking for three rounds tomorrow, that\u2019s all we need. Four-wide is a lot to focus on but we know what to do, we\u2019ve won here before and we need to execute tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking of tomorrow (Sunday), the weather conditions are expected to take a dramatic drop. The last two days have been in the mid-80s, but Sunday\u2019s forecast calls for temps barely above 70 and gusty winds.<\/p>\n
That could bring about a dramatic change for race setups. But that\u2019s good, as cooler temps make race cars go faster.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019ll change things up a little bit, but it should make things a little easier,\u201d Brittany Force said. \u201cWe need our car to go down there every single lap. We usually struggle in the heat, so the fact that we did so well and qualified No. 5, it makes me very curious about how things will go down tomorrow.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll definitely be there, we\u2019re going to step it up and see what we can do in the cooler conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n
John Force is happy and excited at how his team is doing overall. They are the hottest organization in the sport right now.<\/p>\n
\u201cTaking a world champion, Robert Hight, out of the seat \u2013 it was his choice because of personal stuff \u2013 but putting Prock in, I was worried sick how it would go, even though I knew the kid could drive.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe didn\u2019t have much seat time in a Funny Car, but he stepped right up to the plate with his dad, Jimmy (the team\u2019s crew chief), and his brother, Thomas (assistant crew chief). And, boy, they look really good. So I\u2019m excited with that. Brittany\u2019s car\u2019s coming around with a lot of changes made. We\u2019re four races in. Let\u2019s see where this goes.\u201d<\/p>\n
This story was originally published on April 14, 2024. <\/p>\n
The post Austin Prock Leads John Force Racing Into Las Vegas 4-Wide Nationals Finals<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated | Drag Racing News, Opinion, Interviews, Photos, Videos and More<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Austin Prock continued his red-hot ways Saturday, leading John Force Racing in the final day of qualifying for Sunday\u2019s 4-Wide Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Having switched to Funny Car for the first time in his career to start this season, Prock continues to dominate qualifying in the class, earning his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92376","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"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92376\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}