Funny Car rookie Austin Prock drove the AAA Chevrolet Camaro SS through the 1,000-foot timers in 3.837 seconds at 336.23 miles per hour in ideal conditions Friday night to claim the provisional No. 1 starting position for Sunday\u2019s 11th\u00a0NHRA New England Nationals at New England Dragway.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, that was pretty awesome,\u201d Prock enthused.\u00a0\u201cGood speed, too. I finally nipped Tasca (Funny Car rival Bob Tasca III), you know.\u00a0He\u2019s been beating us up on the mile per hour.\u00a0But 336, we\u2019re happy with that, just so happy to get this AAA Camaro running good.\u00a0Hopefully (Friday\u2019s time) will stick for the weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boss and teammate John Force grabbed the provisional No. 2 position behind Prock at 3.868 seconds, 333.16 mph in the PEAK Antifreeze and Coolant Camaro.\u00a0Two final qualifying sessions Saturday will set the field for Sunday\u2019s single elimination finals.<\/p>\n
While Prock and Force were dominating the Funny Car category, going 1-2 in both Friday sessions, two-time Top Fuel World Champion Brittany Force and her Monster Energy dragster were showing flashes of their old form after a couple of disappointing starts.<\/p>\n
NHRA photo<\/p>\n
After a solid 3.783 at 331.69 mph in the opening session, Brittany crossed the line in the provisional No. 3 spot, a welcome turnaround following a rare qualifying failure two weeks ago at Chicago.<\/p>\n
\u201cDay one here in Epping and this Monster Energy team is off to a good start,\u201d she said after stopping the timers in 3.715 seconds at 333.57 mph.\u00a0\u201cWe are coming out of a rough week in Chicago.\u00a0We went testing in Indy and we definitely have a better understanding of this car on hot racetracks.\u00a0We still have a lot to figure out but I feel confident going into this weekend with Monster Energy, HendrickCars.com, PEAK, Flav-R-Pac and Chevrolet.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to qualifying, Saturday\u2019s program will include the\u00a0Mission #2Fast2Tasty NHRA Challenge\u00a0featuring the Chicago semifinalists.\u00a0John Force will be among the four Funny Car drivers battling for cash and Countdown bonus points.\u00a0He\u2019ll oppose Daniel Wilkerson in a first round match at the conclusion of Saturday\u2019s first session.\u00a0Finals will follow the last session.<\/p>\n
Prock\u2019s Friday time was just a tick off the track records set seven years ago by the man for who he is driving the AAA Camaro this year, three-time World Champ Robert Hight. Hight sped down New England\u2019s all-concrete surface in 3.822 seconds at 336.74 mph on June 3, 2017.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe thought it would run \u201982 or \u201983,\u201d Prock said.\u00a0\u201cThe conditions were there for that.\u00a0It\u2019s pretty surreal.\u00a0I\u2019m just holding on to the wheel.\u00a0All the kudos go to this AAA team.\u00a0They\u2019re doing such a great job.\u00a0My dad (crew chief Jimmy Prock) and brother (Thomas) are making really smart decisions.\u00a0And the team is putting the car together the same way every time \u2013 it\u2019s really impressive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Force, too, was in a mood to credit his crew for his Friday success which included an opening 3.903 that was quickest of the first session.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy guys, led by Daniel Hood, gave me a real good race car,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u201cThe only guy who lets them down is me so, I gotta fix me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Force, the sport\u2019s all-time biggest winner with 156 tour victories and 16 World Championships, is a two-time past winner at Epping, where he prevailed in 2015 and again in 2021.<\/p>\n
This story was originally published on June 1, 2024. <\/p>\n
The post Prock, Force Go 1-2 in First Day Qualifying at Epping<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Funny Car rookie Austin Prock drove the AAA Chevrolet Camaro SS through the 1,000-foot timers in 3.837 seconds at 336.23 miles per hour in ideal conditions Friday night to claim the provisional No. 1 starting position for Sunday\u2019s 11th\u00a0NHRA New England Nationals at New England Dragway. \u201cYeah, that was pretty awesome,\u201d Prock enthused.\u00a0\u201cGood speed, too. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93717","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=93717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93717\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}