By an almost imperceivable .0013\u00a0of a second, Austin Prock\u2019s bid for a third straight NHRA Mission Foods tour victory came to an end Sunday in the semifinal round of the 17th\u00a0Summit Racing Equipment Nationals at Summit Motorsports Park.<\/p>\n
In the latest chapter of what quickly is becoming Funny Car drag racing\u2019s best rivalry, Bob Tasca III married an\u00a0.046 of a second reaction time to a 3.929 second track time and 334.73 mile per hour finish line speed to get the nose of his Ford\u00a0across the line\u00a0just ahead of the AAA Chevrolet Camaro SS in which\u00a0Prock\u00a0had\u00a0qualified No.1 for the seventh time in 10 races this year.<\/p>\n
A\u00a0Funny Car rookie who had turned on 16 consecutive win lights in Mission Foods tour and #2Fast2Tasty Challenge events,\u00a0Prock\u00a0was .049 on the Tree with a time of 3.927 at a speed of 328.06 mph.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was close,\u201d said\u00a0the man who is driving this year in relief of JFR President Robert Hight, who is on medical leave.\u00a0\u201cI mean, 13 thousandths (of a second) was a great show for the fans and we just came up on the wrong end of the stick.\u00a0That\u2019s going to happen, but outstanding weekend for the AAA Camaro.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, (we) wanted to get the job done for all of our partners and for John\u00a0Force, but (it) just wasn\u2019t our day, you know.\u00a0We\u2019ll regroup and get ready for the West Coast swing (which includes races in Seattle, Wash., and Sonoma, Calif.).\u201d<\/p>\n
The 28-year-old former sprint car and Top Fuel dragster driver will\u00a0start the\u00a0NHRA Northwest Nationals, July 19-21, with a\u00a0178-point lead over Tasca; 181 over\u00a0third place\u00a0Matt Hagan, the reigning series champion.<\/p>\n
After a total domination of qualifying during which he directed the AAA Chevy to the quick time of every session,\u00a0twice setting the SMP track record and\u00a0earning the maximum number of\u00a0qualifying\u00a0bonus points, a first round stumble against\u00a0unheralded Joe Morrison put his AAA team in catch-up mode.<\/p>\n
Although he easily won the round when Morrison was guilty of a foul start, a car that had performed so flawlessly on Friday and Saturday, suffered a loss of traction upon\u00a0acceleration and slowed to 4.431 seconds, light years away from the four-generation auto racer\u2019s 3.853 track record.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, that was a very odd run, for sure,\u201d he said, \u201cbut we got a freebie, a lucky round,\u201d Prock recalled.\u00a0\u201cIt left and went straight toward the center line. I brought it back but then it hung a right faster than I could catch it.\u00a0I haven\u2019t gotten close to the center line very often,\u00a0but that thing definitely was driving me around.\u201d<\/p>\n
That issue\u00a0placed\u00a0the point leader\u00a0in\u00a0the less favored right lane\u00a0for\u00a0round two and,\u00a0although he negotiated it successfully, his 3.922 second time at 330.39 mph was not quite good enough to give him the lane choice edge against Tasca, who won the honors with an identical time coupled to a speed of 332.92 mph.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As for\u00a0John Force, the 16-time World Champion and member of virtually every motorsports Hall of Fame,\u00a0he\u00a0remained Sunday in the neuro intensive care unit of a Richmond, Va., trauma hospital with a TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) suffered in the 302 mile an hour crash of his PEAK Chevy last Sunday during the opening round of the Virginia Nationals.<\/p>\n
This story was originally published on July 1, 2024. <\/p>\n
The post Prock\u2019s Win Streak Comes to an End in Norwalk<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By an almost imperceivable .0013\u00a0of a second, Austin Prock\u2019s bid for a third straight NHRA Mission Foods tour victory came to an end Sunday in the semifinal round of the 17th\u00a0Summit Racing Equipment Nationals at Summit Motorsports Park. In the latest chapter of what quickly is becoming Funny Car drag racing\u2019s best rivalry, Bob Tasca […]<\/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-94479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94479","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=94479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94479\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}