Seemingly at every stop on the 2025 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series tour, Austin Prock creates more memories.
That was once again the case on the sport’s biggest stage – the 71st annual Cornwell Quality Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals on Monday in Indianapolis.
For the second year in a row, the reigning NHRA Funny Car champion won the storied event, clocking a 3.903-second elapsed time at 332.92 mph in the finals. He defeated John Force Racing teammate Jack Beckman, who slowed to 4.553 seconds at 236.09 mph at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park.
“We came into the U.S. Nationals this year with a little bit more of a … not competitive car, but we had more wins coming into here and we definitely had a little bit more of a pep in our step and me screwing up on Saturday night definitely put a pretty big dip in the road,” Prock said. “It was hard for me to get back in the car and go out there and execute, and they turned the race car around and I got my stuff together behind the wheel and we never looked back after that. When this thing’s on, it’s really hard to beat. Like my dad [his crew chief Jimmy Prock] said earlier this week, with just the package we have and we were able to execute, and that gives us a lot of confidence going into the playoffs here in a few short weeks.
“We battled through a lot of adversity. There’s a lot of people working on these race cars and it’s hard to get it to go just perfect every lap. Even when the number comes up on the board and it might be low E.T. or a good run, it’s never perfect, and we hold ourselves to a high standard across the board and I definitely do myself. When I make a mistake, I own up to it, and it pisses me off and it makes me hungry to be better and learn from it and just keep attacking and try to be the best driver out there. That’s my goal. I want to keep turning on win lights and make my sponsors proud, make John Force proud, and make my family proud.”
It was quite the couple of days for Prock. On Sunday, he won the PlayNHRA Funny Car All-Star Callout, defeating Ron Capps in the final round of the specialty race. The victory earned Prock an $80,000 check.
He also clinched the regular-season title, and the accompanying $150,000 bonus, by simply qualifying for the 16-car field at Indy.
On Monday, Prock, who qualified No. 2 at 3.873 333.00 mph, was on point, ousting Julie Nataas, Bob Tasca III, Blake Alexander, and Beckman.
“Obviously, we want to have lane choice every time we go up to the racetrack, and Tasca, he dropped a bomb this morning and he picked off lane choice from us,” Prock said. “But I think that that showed how strong this team is, is we went in the unpreferred lane and go up there and run low E.T. of the session, which definitely obviously made us all feel good.
“That right lane here can get treacherous and NHRA did a great job keeping the lanes pretty fair all weekend, and we were able to get the win over him and then get choice of lane again. It’s not always what lane do you want, it’s what lane is better when you get up there, and to be able to have that choice is so valuable, especially with how competitive everybody’s cars are now. Everybody has picked up their game tremendously this year and especially this weekend. It was like Pro Stock out there. A guy would rip off a 93 and then five other guys would, and it was down to the thousandths of a second, separating qualifying positions, separating lane choice. So having that edge or that advantage is always valuable.”
Prock captured his 18th career Wally – 14 in Funny Car, and four in Top Fuel.
“To win in my rookie season was obviously really special, and last year when we sat down and we did that interview as a family, one of the questions was, ‘What would it mean to win it as a family?’ And it really hit all of us I feel like, and we came out guns blazing,” Austin said. “It just puts a little bit of an extra pep in our step and to go out there and execute and do the job and have a dominant performance like we did last year. Then to come back again this year and do it is just surreal.
“It was a dream of mine to win a championship, but you never know if that’s going to happen. So many stars have to align. You have to get the right opportunity, you have to be surrounded by the right people, you have to have the right sponsors backing you. To get a U.S. Nationals win last year and then win the championship, and then come back and win the U.S. Nationals again, I don’t even know what to say. They say when you win the U.S. Nationals once, it puts you in an elite group. When you do it back-to-back, it’s still an elite group. It’s badass.”
This was Prock’s seventh race win of the season and third in a row. It’s also his fourth victory in the last five races.
Making things even sweeter Monday for Prock was he was driving his Cornwell Tools Chevrolet SS Funny Car to the race win, and Cornwell was the title sponsor for the U.S. Nationals.
“Every weekend we come out, we [Prock and Beckman] want to try and qualify No. 1 and No. 2. We want to try and get two of these race cars in the final round and we did exactly that on top of locking up the regular season championship,” Prock said. “Jack locking up No. 2 in the regular season and then going to the final round. I mean, it couldn’t have been a more perfect weekend on the Funny Car side of things for John Force Racing.
“Then, you got Brittany, [Force out there in Top Fuel]. She qualified No. 1, and set the speed record again. I got to stand behind that thing for the first time when I watched it or for the first time when it went 343 mph today. And man, that thing got small quick. It’s totally incredible what David Grubnic is doing. I mean, it just sounds off on the starting line. She doesn’t even have to step on the gas, and it sounds like it’s going to go 340 mph. So that was really cool to see this morning.
“So JFR is in a great spot right now. All the race cars are performing well. We’re doing everything that we need to do to make our sponsors happy, be eligible to find new sponsors, find more backing and help promote and grow the sport.”
Prock improved his elimination-round record for the season to 33-7. He has been to nine final rounds in 14 races.
A year ago was Prock’s first season driving a nitro Funny Car as a replacement for Robert Hight, who was sidelined for medical reasons. Prock won a class-best eight national events en route to the championship.
“When I started driving this race car last year, I’d worked with a lot of these guys, but I’d never driven the race car,” Prock said. “And I told them Step One is we’re having fun. We’re going to have fun, we’re going to work hard because this job is way too stressful to go up there and be Negative Nancy and be disgruntled, grumpy. You have to have a light vibe in the pits and let everybody be themselves and let everybody do their job. I think across the board, all three teams are doing that, and I think that that breeds a lot of success in my mind for sure. Everything’s just clicking right now.”
This season, Prock has wins at: the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals April 13 at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway; the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals at zMAX Dragway in Charlotte on April 27; Richmond, Virginia, on June 22; Norwalk, Ohio, on June 29; Sonoma, California on July 27; Brainerd, Minnesota, Aug. 17, and Indy (Sept. 1).
“It’s not one person. It’s everybody from this Cornwell Tools team to the PEAK team, to the Monster Energy team, to the people back in the shop all the way down to the media,” said Prock about what has fueled his success. “Everybody’s just doing a great job and keeping everybody’s head in line. Everybody gets along.
“Brittany, and Danny (Hood) and I were talking last night and this is probably the most, I don’t know, perfect is the word or well-balanced, but across the board on all three teams, just the camaraderie. Everybody’s got each other’s back, everybody gets along, everybody can have fun. And that goes a long way.”
Prock has won 15 of the last 34 NHRA national events.
“When you go back-to-back at the U.S. Nationals, it’s definitely something to celebrate, but I’ll be in the car a handful of hours because we’re going to be testing [Tuesday]. We’re going to make four or five runs, and we’ve been trying to test all season long and Mother Nature or the tracks just haven’t done us any favors. It either gets rained out or canceled,” Prock said. “So the list is long, and we’re going to have to be sharp tomorrow. We have a lot to learn and try to keep pushing this Cornwell Tools machine to the best of its ability.”
Up next for Prock is a quest for championship No. 2 in the six-race Countdown to Championship, beginning with the Reading NHRA Nationals, Sept. 11-14 in Mohnton, Pennsylvania.
The racers who secured a position in the Countdown will have their NHRA Mission Foods points reset after the U.S. Nationals. In Top Fuel and Funny Car, first and second place will be separated by 20 points while each position second through 10th place will be separated by 10 points.
Losing his massive points lead to the reset is something Prock doesn’t like, but understands that it’s part of the challenge to be the champion.
“It’s nothing new. It happened last year and it’s a shame. I understand why we do it, but it definitely stings watching that disintegrate. But all we have to do is just keep doing our job,” Prock said. “You can’t get caught up in that and be aggravated over it. You just have to go up there and do the same job that’s got us to this point. And we did that. We executed that perfectly last year. We went out there and I think we won the first two or three races in the Countdown. And if you can do that, you pat yourself a little bit.
“So, we’re not going to have as much advantage over second as we did last year. We didn’t accumulate as many Mission #2Fast2Tasty wins. And that’s just to my point again, that everybody stepped up their competition, their level of competition. It is what it is. We just got to go out there and it’s the same for everyone. Actually, it’s not the same for everyone, but we just got to keep doing our job and do what we can to keep putting this Cornwell Tools machine in the winner’s circle. And if we do that, maybe we’ll be world champions again.”
