John Force continued to turn back time Sunday at New England Dragway, driving his PEAK Antifreeze and Coolant Chevrolet Camaro SS past teammate and Funny Car point leader Austin Prock in an all-John Force Racing final to win the 11th\u00a0NHRA New England Nationals.<\/p>\n
Force won in 4.081 seconds at 319.29 miles per hour.\u00a0Prock, the 28-year-old Funny Car rookie, was a close second in 4.096 seconds at 316.38 mph in a AAA Chevy he inherited when three-time World Champion Robert Hight opted out of the cockpit this year for health reasons.<\/p>\n
\u201cDaniel Hood and the boys gave me a good hot rod and, for once, I didn\u2019t mess it up,\u201d said the exhausted, but excited winner.\u00a0\u201cI love this race.\u00a0It\u2019s like the old match race days.\u00a0It\u2019s an old school track and the people here are unbelievable.\u00a0There were even fans from the old days in Canada where I won my first race.\u00a0They come in here early in the morning and stay late and they love it, just like I do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Force, who had won 48 NHRA tour events and four championships before his young teammate was even born, won for the 157th\u00a0time in his remarkable career and moved up to No. 2 in points seven races into his 48th\u00a0professional season.<\/p>\n
Sunday\u2019s win, his third at New England Dragway, assured the 27th\u00a0multi-win season of\u00a0his remarkable career and sends him into this week\u2019s 23rd\u00a0Super Grip Thunder Valley Nationals at Bristol, Tenn., just 22 points behind Prock, who\u2019s car will adorn Cornwell colors.\u00a0It\u2019s the first time JFR drivers have been 1-2 in points since Oct. 20, 2019 at the conclusion of the Texas Fall Nationals in Dallas.<\/p>\n
Racing in the 51st\u00a0all-JFR final in tour history but the first since this event in 2021, Force improved his final round record against eight different teammates to 23-19 and evened his overall record with Prock at 1-1.\u00a0Before Sunday, the driver of the \u201cProck Rocket\u201d had been one of seven drivers the 16-time champion never had beaten.<\/p>\n
The third JFR team member, Brittany Force, shared in the post-race celebration, but not in the success.\u00a0The two-time Top Fuel World Champion used a .061 of a second reaction time for an early lead in her first round showdown with eight-time champion and eventual Sunday runner-up Tony Schumacher, but things quickly deteriorated on a hot and challenging racetrack.\u00a0Although both cars lost traction, Schumacher was able to limp across the line in 4.170 seconds for the win.<\/p>\n
Brittany\u2019s Monster Energy dragster coasted across in 4.314 seconds at 242.10 mph, far off the 3.715 at a track record-setting 335.57 mph speed that carried her to the No. 3 qualifying position.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite the loss, crew chief David Grubnic believes the team made progress toward re-establishing itself as a title contender.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot the weekend we were looking for, by any means,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u201cOur qualifying performance was decent but it\u2019s still not where it needs to be.\u00a0We\u2019re still sorting out some issues and getting the car back into sync with the engine power levels and clutch, but we believe we\u2019re heading in the right direction.\u00a0So, hopefully, within the next two or three races, you\u2019ll see this team back on top.\u00a0That is our goal; that is our plan; that is what we\u2019re going to strive for.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for the driver, she acknowledged a similar degree of frustration, coupled with a like belief that things are on the upswing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis Monster Energy team is leaving Epping frustrated, but we are still determined,\u201d said the 16-time tour winner.\u00a0\u201cRight now, we are focusing on the little bits of progress we made this weekend (and) I like that we are heading straight to Bristol which keeps our motivation high.\u00a0There is no time in between and we are right back on a racetrack figuring things out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, her dad, who has been inducted into every major and minor motorsports Hall of Fame on the continent including the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America, the International Motorsports Hall of Fame and the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame, won for the second time this season after prevailing earlier in a Lucas Oil Winternationals that began in Pomona, Calif., before being completed in Phoenix. \u00a0<\/p>\n
By any measure, it was a dominating performance by the JFR Chevrolets which were quickest in every condition \u2013 cool, hot, sunlight, moonlight and everything in between.\u00a0Prock was quickest in the Friday night \u201chero\u201d qualifying session in which he coaxed the blue-and-white AAA Chevy through the course in 3.837 seconds, just .015 of a second off the track record set by the same Auto Club team, but with Hight at the controls, in 2017.\u00a0He also posted top speed of the weekend at 336.23 mph, equaling the fastest speed he ever recorded during his three plus years driving a JFR Top Fuel dragster.<\/p>\n
Force, who tuned up for his Sunday success by winning Saturday\u2019s Mission #2Fast2Tasty NHRA Challenge, was second quickest of the entire weekend at 3.865 seconds, but it was the race day performance of the two JFR Chevys that will be a major topic of conversation.<\/p>\n
The only driver other than Prock and Force to break the 4.00 second barrier in Sunday\u2019s challenging conditions was Chad Green and his opening round 3.976 wasn\u2019t even good enough for lane choice in a round two match with the Auto Club Chevy, which had been six-thousandths quicker (3.970) in a first round win over Mike Smith\u2019s Dodge. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Prock sent Green packing with a time of 3.983 coupled to a stellar .044 of a second reaction time and then threw a 3.993 at Daniel Wilkerson in the semifinals. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe car ran outstanding all weekend,\u201d Prock said.\u00a0\u201cMy dad (Jimmy) and my brother Thomas and the rest of the crew did a helluva job and the biggest thing is I finally got a hold of the Christmas Tree (starting system).\u00a0.44 shallow (an .044 reaction time while shallow staged) in a Funny Car, that\u2019s really good and I had to do some driving.\u00a0It was a fun day, a big day for John Force Racing, AAA, PEAK and Chevrolet.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for Force, his opening round 3.967 stood as the quickest in eliminations.\u00a0He followed with a 4.059 against Blake Alexander and improved to 3.994 to get past J.R. Todd that set up the third all-JFR final in 11 years at Epping.\u00a0Force and daughter Courtney raced in the very first final in 2013 and Force beat Hight to win in 2021.<\/p>\n
This story was originally published on June 3, 2024. <\/p>\n
The post Force Beats Prock in Classic All-JFR Final at Epping<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" John Force continued to turn back time Sunday at New England Dragway, driving his PEAK Antifreeze and Coolant Chevrolet Camaro SS past teammate and Funny Car point leader Austin Prock in an all-John Force Racing final to win the 11th\u00a0NHRA New England Nationals. Force won in 4.081 seconds at 319.29 miles per hour.\u00a0Prock, the 28-year-old […]<\/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-93765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93765","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=93765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93765\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}