Austin Prock, driver of the Montana Brand / Rocky Mountain Twist Top Fuel dragster for John Force Racing was named the Auto Club Road to the Future Award, NHRA’s Rookie of the Year Award, winner at the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series awards banquet at the Ray Dolby Theater in Hollywood.

“I am proud of the season this Montana Brand / Rocky Mountain Twist team put together. My guys worked their asses off all season long to give me the opportunity to win the Auto Club Road the Future Award. I couldn't have done it without them,” Prock said. “I would have never been here without John Force and Robert Hight. They gave me the opportunity to fulfill my dream and I owe the world to them. I hope I made them proud.”

Just as when the drag-racing community convened at Pomona in February, the Top Fuel class is doing so without eight-time champion Tony Schumacher, whose 19-year U.S. Army sponsorship vanished at the end of the 2018 season. He hasn’t competed since this race a year ago, when he was runner-up to Steve Torrence and finished second in the final standings.

But Schumacher insists he remains committed to driving again – and soon, he hopes. And he still said he and his Don Schumacher Racing marketing experts are more interested in finding a compatible business partner with whom the race team can work on a B2B basis.

For the longest time, many wondered if Erica Enders would ever return to championship form.

Heck, even Enders herself wondered if she would ever be that same cutthroat, championship driver that took the Pro Stock world by storm with back-to-back championships in 2014 and 2015.

At the 2019 NHRA Winternationals at Auto Club Raceway in Pomona back in February, Robert Hight came out swinging with the quickest pass on day one of the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series season. On day two he collected his first pole position of the year. On day three, he hoisted in first Wally.

Fast forward nine months and 23 races later and Hight ended the 2019 season exactly the way he started it – right at the top.

The Head Racing Nitro Funny Car entry will be driven by Blake Alexander in 2020. Alexan-der and car owner/crew chief Jim Head will compete in 20 events on the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series with backing from Pronto Auto Service Centers and Head Contractors and Engineers.
 
“I enjoyed working with Jim when I drove his car in Bristol and I’m happy to say that we will be merging and beginning a business partnership,” Alexander said. “I am looking forward to a successful relationship with Jim and his group for many years to come. I really appreciate the Wilkerson’s kindness and dedication in helping a young race team flourish in 2019. Tim is someone that I look up to. Krista and him together are no doubt role models and people that I greatly respect. I look forward to seeing them, Daniel Wilkerson and my crew at the race track next season.”

Oh dear . . . Maybe it’s a wise move for Top Fuel racer Cameron Ferré not to take the advice of close buddy, sportsman-racing veteran, and “Racers in Rental Cars” podcast co-host Don O’Neal.

All racers are trying to find a way to stand out among the crowd and get attention for their sponsors or attract a sponsor. But in the most recent episode of “Racers in Rental Cars,” O’Neal came up with a sure-fire way to attract attention – and spark a melee. Just before the Las Vegas race, O’Neal pondered the universal lament by racers then, in tongue-in-cheek fashion, suggested an ingenious move:

By the end of Sunday’s second round of NHRA Finals eliminations at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona, Calif., Steve Torrence had all but earned his second consecutive Top Fuel championship.

He didn’t even have to win the race. All he had to do was avoid incurring a center-line or wall-grazing infraction that would have cost five points. The only question at that point was whether last-standing challenger Doug Kalitta would be saddled with his fifth series runner-up label by 33 points or three points.

Typically, missing out on a world championship by the narrowest of margins after doing all you can to come out on top would leave a driver feeling down and out.

That would be most people. But not Jack Beckman.

You couldn’t have asked for a better day for the Elite Motorsports bunch.

Entering the 55th annual Auto Club NHRA Finals at Auto Club Raceway one-two in the championship standings, the elite Pro Stock team walked away securing that one-two finish in points while adding a win as Jeg Coughlin picked up his second win of the 2019 season and Erica Enders earned her third championship to cap a strong season for the organization.

In less than 24 hours at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona, Pro Stock Motorcycle rookie Jianna Salinas went from fighting to qualify for the field of 16 at the NHRA Finals to holding her first Wally trophy.

The emotional 22-year-old from San Jose celebrated her winning 7.464-second, 180.81-mph victory Sunday on the fabled quarter-mile California dragstrip, saying, “I never would have thought that I would be able to pull this off. I came into today saying, 'you know, whatever happens, happens. Win or lose, I get to end the season on a high note. But just to be here right now in this moment . . . it's just, it's not something I ever thought would happen too soon."