Photography: John Force Racing / Gary Nastase / Auto Imagery
LAS VEGAS (NOV. 3, 2025) – John Force Racing’s Brittany Force and Austin Prock both returned to the final round in this year’s NHRA Nevada Nationals as they did last year, but this time it was just Force who took home the Top hardware at the end of the day while Prock finished with the runner-up but inched that much closer to a consecutive Funny Car championship.
Jack Beckman ran a quicker elapsed time than second-round opponent Daniel Wilkerson but a late jump off the starting line nullified a strong run that would have put the PEAK Antifreeze and Coolant Chevrolet SS Funny Car into the semifinals and kept alive his championship hopes.
In her final appearance at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Brittany Force and her 12,000-horsepower Chevrolet Accessories Top Fuel Dragster powered past Shawn Langdon in the final round on Sunday, winning for the 19th time in her career and moving ahead of Shirley Muldowney for the most Top Fuel wins by a female driver.
Force went 3.704-seconds at 337.33 mph, holding off Langdon’s run of 3.727 at 333.91 to pick up her second victory in 2025 and her fifth career win in Las Vegas. It brought out a roar from the crowd as Force, who announced her retirement from full-time racing at the end of the season, looks to close the season in style.
She qualified No. 1, setting the track speed record on Friday, and then knocked off Clay Millican and Tony Stewart on Sunday to face off against Langdon. She posted a solid .065 reaction time and quickly chased down Langdon, as her 19th career win also moved her into fourth place in the championship point standings.
It gives Force back-to-back fall wins at Las Vegas, adding another special memory to her standout career.
“This win is a special one,” Force said. “This race is now something more than any other race, because of that number 19, lining it up as the winningest female driver in Top Fuel makes it more special. When we look back on this win, this one now will be because we were able to do that with two races left.
“Ever since I made my retirement announcement, my guys have said they wanted at least one more win for me and I wanted to end strong and get back to that winner’s circle. It’s been far too long. I put my heart into it. My team puts their heart into this car. It’s very special.”
Prock had the Cornwell Tools Chevrolet SS Funny Car poised for a repeat of last year’s Nevada Nationals, running 3.895 seconds in Round 1 against Jason Rupert, 3.922 seconds against J.R. Todd in the second round and 3.878 seconds, in the semifinals against Bob Tasca.
In the final round against championship rival Matt Hagan, it was Hagan who ran 3.877 seconds for low ET of the weekend while the Prock had to pedal the Prock Rocket after it lost traction early in the run. That said, the reigning Funny Car Champion takes a 101-point lead into the Nov. 13-16 In-N-Out Burger NHRA Finals at In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip.
“We went up there and read the race track but these Funny Cars can be funny sometimes,” said Prock. “The Cornwell Tools Chevy did everything we asked it to. Everything lined up on the computers just like it should have but it just didn’t go, and it’s hard to say exactly what it was. Losing in the final round to our closest competitor stings but, all in all, it was a good weekend. l We wanted to go to the final round and we wanted a shot at winning and we believe we had a shot at winning but it just didn’t work out. “
An untimely late reaction time in Round 2 ended the day early for Jack Beckman and the PEAK Antifreeze and Coolant Chevrolet SS Funny Car team. Wilkerson got the jump off the starting line by nearly four-hundredths-of-a-second (0.057 to 0.098) and, though the PEAK SQUAD ran 3.903 seconds at 330.88 mph, it wasn’t enough to get around Wilkerson’s 3.932 at 320.58.
“We had a great PEAK Chevy and marginal driver on that run,” said the 2012 NHRA Funny Car Champion. “There’s no other way to spin it. I got beat on a holeshot. I don’t know that my best light was going to win that race. Wilkerson just nailed the tree. I didn’t have a light this weekend quick enough to outrun that, but I also didn’t have the light that I should have had up there. That’s a bitter pill. It makes for a long toe back to the pits, knowing that the crew gave you a phenomenal race car and you didn’t give them 100% out there so I’m not going to try to spin this in a positive way. I’m upset and I let the team down. I also don’t do good dwelling on negative things. I’m going to work on the things that I need to work on to be better when we unload the car at Pomona.”
Beckman had the second-quickest pass in Round 1, running 3.912 seconds at 331.12 mph to Dave Richards’ tire-smoking 5.430 at 133.84, which set up lane choice for the second-round pairing against Wilkerson.
The 2025 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series Top Fuel point standings after 19 events are: 1. Doug Kalitta, 2,607; 2. Shawn Langdon, 2,463; 3. Justin Ashley, 2,444; 4. Brittany Force, 2,415; 5. Tony Stewart, 2,364; 6. Clay Millican, 2,335; 7. Steve Torrence, 2,297; 8. Shawn Reed, 2,290; 9. Antron Brown, 2,275; 10. Josh Hart, 2,185.
The 2025 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series Funny Car point standings after 19 races are: 1. Austin Prock, 2,594; 2. Matt Hagan, 2,493; 3. Jack Beckman, 2,416; 4. Ron Capps, 2,370; 5. Daniel Wilkerson, 2,369; 6. Paul Lee, 2,289; 7. Chad Green, 2,288; 8. Cruz Pedregon, 2,283; 9. Spencer Hyde, 2,272; 10. Bob Tasca III, 2,264.
NEXT RACE
The 20th and final round of the 2025 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series is the Nov. 13-16 In-N-Out Burger NHRA Finals at In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip.
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