Austin Prock has been a rock star in qualifying all season, and that trend continued Friday night at NHRA’s FallNationals in Dallas.
Prock, piloting his AAA Camaro for John Force Racing, clocked a 3.813-second elapsed time at 333.09 mph in Q2 to take the provisional No. 1 spot at Texas Motorplex.
If Prock can hold the No. 1 spot through Saturday’s two qualifying sessions it would be his 13th No. 1 qualifying position in 2024 in 18 races. If Prock achieves that, he will tie his boss John Force for the single-season NHRA nitro Funny Car record. Force established the mark in 1996.
“Yeah, I know I was definitely jacked up for this one. I knew the conditions were there and I knew this AAA team was going to push if the conditions were there, so I’m really proud of them,” Prock said. “This track is very difficult to drive, especially at night. The Meyer family, they bring in all the lights and everything they can do, but it’s still tough to see out there. So, I stood on the gas and felt like I was pretty centered up and then I think I got close to the center line down there. I was a little tardy on the parachutes.
“But, yeah, still a great run, and I’m itching to get back to the pit and re-watch the run and see what I can learn and I’m pretty sure I stole a few thou there on the starting line. So, just got out of my routine, bumping in there and stepped off the pedal, bumped the brakes once and the bulb was lit so I know I wasn’t a hundred percent tight. So, looking forward to getting back to the pit and scoping out that video, seeing what I can learn and getting back to work.”
Prock started the weekend with a 3.905-second elapsed time at 330.69, which put him No. 7 on the ladder.
“I don’t speak to him (his father Jimmy, his crew chief) directly, I just hear him on the radio so I mind my own business and let him do his deal up there because he doesn’t need his youngest son in his ear barking. I just knew what calls they were making and I was pretty certain it was going to be loaded up. I heard Lanny Miglizzi (JFR’s track specialist) on the radio giving all the track numbers and I don’t know a lot, but I know enough to be dangerous.”
Prock had won three races in a row: the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis, followed by the Countdown to the Championship shows in Reading, Pa., and Charlotte before losing in the semifinals to his JFR teammate Jack Beckman in St. Louis on Sept. 29. He has won seven races this season.
Prock arrived in Dallas with a 105-point lead over second-place Beckman.
“We’re always on kill, I would say, but we definitely know we have to be at our absolute best these last three races to try and wrap this deal up,” Prock said. “We’ve put a lot of hard work in this year, and we’ve done a lot good. But like I’ve been saying the last few weeks, the job is not finished. Three races, that’s a long way to go in this Countdown.”
Mother Nature may take center stage Sunday as the temperature is supposed to be in the high 90s. Prock is well aware of the expected conditions.
“We’ve been looking at it for a month. My dad, he’s a part-time weatherman. We knew what we were getting into coming into this weekend, and we just got to race the conditions,” Austin said. “We’ve had success when the track’s gorilla like this and it’s cool out and the air is good, and we’ve had success when the track’s 140 degrees. So we’ve just got to keep making smart decisions and play off our notebook and try and do the best we can and see how everything falls out.
“We just (need to) take it round by round, and whatever the conditions give us, we try and do the best that we can and we’ve gotten some favorable conditions the last two weekends and went 3.814 and 3.813. So, to do it once but to do it twice at drag racing, that’s a big deal.”
Before this season, Prock from 2019-23 – drove a Top Fuel dragster for JFR, and a career-best third in the points standings in 2022. He collected four national-event wins and three No. 1 qualifiers.
He was thrust into Funny Car action this season when three-time world champ Robert Hight was sidelined by a medical issue.
