Photography: John Force Racing / Gary Nastase / Auto Imagery
SONOMA, Calif. (July 26, 2025) – Two-time Top Fuel World Champion Brittany Force followed a record-setting Friday night with a spectacular Saturday at Sonoma Raceway where she drove her Monster Energy dragster to victory in the Mission Foods 2Fast/2Tasty Challenge and secured the No. 1 qualifying position for Sunday’s 37th NHRA Sonoma Nationals.
Her John Force Racing teammates, Funny Car drivers Jack Beckman and Austin Prock, will start Sunday from the number three and number five positions, respectively, again assuring that, if they race one another, it will only be in the final round.
As he predicted, Beckman was back on form Saturday in the PEAK Antifreeze and Coolant Chevrolet SS in which he posted a best-of-the-day 3.876 at 333.16 mph, followed by a 3.905 at 326.56 mph. After misfiring on his first attempt (11.310 seconds at only 93.88 mph), Prock muscled the Cornwell Tools Chevy SS to a 3.908 at 332.59 mph on his final attempt.
Racing on her “second home track,” Brittany beat Doug Kalitta and Justin Ashley to win for the second time in a 2Fast/2Tasty series that, for 13 races during the regular season, provides a “do-over” opportunity for the semifinalists from the most recent tour event. In addition to cash, the former Rookie-of-the-Year earned valuable bonus points that will apply to her adjusted point total at the outset of the Countdown to the Championship.
After stunning a capacity crowd on Friday night with a national record setting speed of 343.16 miles per hour coupled to a track record time of 3.645 seconds, the 18-time pro tour winner ran a best-of-the-day 3.686 at 324.20 mph in warmer, less favorable conditions Saturday.
That run propelled her past Kalitta and into the final round of the Challenge where she dispatched Ashley with a time of 3.869 seconds at 324.75 mph that was second quickest of the final qualifying session, earning her two more bonus points.
“We’re finally just getting our stuff together from last season when we won in Las Vegas (at the NHRA Nevada Nationals),” she said of her team’s resurgence. “We’ve been chasing it for two years and we really just figured this package out.
“This group with David Grubnic, John Collins, all these Monster Energy guys, very proud of all of them,” she said. “The success we’ve had this weekend has been incredible. I’m signing autographs (with an acknowledgement of her 343-mph speed) and it still seems surreal to me. I feel like I’m making a mistake. But really proud for Monster Energy, HendrickCars.com, Cornwell Tools, PEAK, Chevrolet, all our sponsors. I love all of them and I love the fans.”
The only woman to have won as many as 300 competitive rounds in the sport’s signature category, the 39-year-old Force will start from No. 1 Sunday for the third time at Sonoma and for the third time this season on the strength of her Friday night performance. It will be the 55th No. 1 start of her career, more than any other woman in the sport.
Her reward for such a performance is a first-round match-up with former World Champion Shawn Langdon against whom she is 16-11 in her career but to whom she lost in the final round last week at Seattle. The winner automatically will advance to the semifinals on a bye, the result of a short field of only 10 cars.
“We’re all excited; we’re so pumped,” said the woman who developed her skills racing Super Comp and A/Fuel dragsters. “We’re ready for tomorrow; we’re looking forward to tomorrow — but we’re also looking ahead.
“We want to move up in points,” she said. “We want to be top half when this Countdown resets and we want to chase down another championship. I’m motivated. It’s the ultimate goal. It’s what every team out here is trying to do and what our team wants to achieve.
“We did it back in 2017 and then again in 2022, but we’re getting hungry again,” she said. “We’ve been out of (contention) for a while, and we want to get right back in there.”
Beckman, who won the Sonoma Nationals in 2015 when Jimmy Prock was tuning his Funny Car at Don Schumacher Racing, earned qualifying bonus points on both runs Saturday, something he was doing with regularity earlier in the season.
“That’s exactly what the PEAK Squad was looking for,” the 2012 World Champion said of his Saturday performance. “Our Chevy has been a little inconsistent lately, but I think maybe we found our race car today. That’s exactly what we needed to do. It was a lot warmer than yesterday, and (3.87) is probably about all the track would hold.
“I think we found our consistency again,” he said. “We were one out of four in qualifying at Seattle, but we were three out of four here. I’ve got my buddy Jason Rupert first round tomorrow and I like our chances.”
Prock, who has won four times this year, twice as often as anyone else in the category, will begin his quest in a first-round showdown with Cruz Pedregon.
“They always have it under control on this Cornwell Tools machine,” Prock said of a Cornwell crew led by his dad that also includes his brother Thomas and Nate Hildahl. “They do an outstanding job. A lot of people watching this sport when we stumble one or two runs everyone thinks the world’s ending and, you know, we’re not that messed up.
“We’re just a little messed up,” he said, “and we’ll get it sorted out. That was a great run. From blowing the tires off in Q3 to running the fourth best run of the (final) session. We tested a little bit with this weekend, but we’ll have it turned around tomorrow and I’m looking forward to a great Sunday.”
