Austin Prock believes it was the most profound lesson John Force ever gave him. 

The so-called rookie, subbing for Robert Hight, who has won everything but the Missouri lottery, believes the most significant takeaway from the lessons he learned from John Force is to be a sponge for knowledge, even if he's been practicing his craft for five decades. 

As he sees it, if Force can still learn something new, he has a ton of stuff to master.

"That speaks for his success," Prock said. "He's one of the greatest ever do it, driving it, winning in it, getting sponsors, putting a team together that is capable of winning with all the right people and partners behind you. So yeah, I've been blessed with a lot of great mentors and grown up around a lot of smart people. Our family's been blessed in that aspect of motorsports racing. Just taking it all in and going day by day and keep on learning.

"These race cars are animals and they're always throwing you for a different curve and you're always learning something new that opens up another door of learning. So my dad and many of the successful people out here, Austin Coil, when you stop learning, you might as well hang it up because you're never going to improve and you're never going to get better and you're never going to be the best. So you always got to keep learning, and I'm always finding avenues to do that."

One aspect early in his Funny Car driving career that Prock has apparently mastered is winning. Consider this. He has reached the final round in over half of the Funny Car racers he's entered, winning seven times. He's also started from the No. 1 seed in eleven races. 

The numbers speak volumes, as Prock scored 70 rounds wins in 70 races with four national event wins and three No. 1 qualifiers during his entire time as a Top Fuel driver. 

While he could easily skate his way to a series championship, it's not in Prock's DNA. He plans to wring every ounce of performance from this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. He's driving a Camaro Funny Car tuned by his father and brother, filling in for a storied champion in Hight. 

"Opportunities don't come along like this in very many people's lifetimes, if ever in a lifetime," Prock said. "So I knew that this was a serious deal, and I knew that this was a race car capable of winning races and winning a championship, and I knew I needed to do an outstanding job driving it. I strive for perfection, and I have not been perfect all year long. 

​

"You're always working towards being better. And every time I get in this race car, I feel like I'm learning something new, getting more comfortable, maybe getting a little ruffled up, just going through the balances of life and trying to organize that, all that to stay cool, calm and collected when the pressure is on."

Early on in the season, Prock embraced the new opportunity, and for those on the outside, it didn't appear many expectations were heaped on the youthful driver outside of a don't wad of the race car. He was just a rookie, after all. 

"There was pressure, but it was different," Prock admitted. "I was just going up there doing my job, and the longer the race, the season went on, and we were so successful, I felt like the pressure was getting harder and harder. And you need to take a reset sometimes and just realize that you're driving a nitro funny car for John Force. Your dad and brother are tuning it with an awesome team behind me, and why don't you go and enjoy it and the cards will fall, how they're going to fall."

And for Prock, those cards had better fall into an NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series championship because anything less is a major fail. 

"I feel like I have a little bit more open attitude to that than maybe my dad," Prock said. "Even if we do make a good run and it doesn't do exactly what he wants it to do, he's mad, and that's what I'm talking about striving for perfection. You don't have the success unless you put in the work and always consistently learn and just try and tickle every little thing to try and make that perfect run that, as Frank Hawley would say, it's impossible. So yeah, you just got to keep picking at it. And my dad's been doing a great job of it this year, but that's what makes him one of the best. That's what separates him good from great."

In Jimmy Prock's book, the runner-up is the first loser. This is the story told with each successful outing. 

"That's the thing about drag racing," Prock said. "If you don't win, you lose. You didn't run second; you didn't run third. You either win, or you lose. And that's what makes this sport so awesome, and it's what makes it so miserable is there's no in-between, and everybody out here wants to win, and there's only one winner, and the rest are losers."