Photo Credit: Gary Nastase / Auto Imagery
| READING, Pa. (Sept. 13, 2024) – Funny Car rookie Austin Prock took one giant step toward earning his 11th No. 1 start of the season Friday when he drove the Cornwell Tools Chevrolet Camaro SS to a time of 3.849 seconds at a career best speed of 338.43 coupled miles per hour on the first day of qualifying for the 39th Pep Boys Nationals at Maple Grove Raceway. Racing in what were likely the best conditions of the weekend, Prock took full advantage at the wheel of the blue-and-black Camaro tuned by his dad Jimmy and maintained by a battle-tested crew that is hoping to celebrate in the Maple Grove winners’ circle for the third straight year after winning in 2022 and 2023 with Robert Hight. “The ol’ Prock Rocket was on fire tonight,” Prock gushed after surging around teammate “Fast Jack” Beckman and into his usual No. 1 spot, “and it sure is fun to drive. It was about as good of a day as we could get. We were second quick in the first session and then we went up there, went low ET and ran a career best speed. “Proud of that,” beamed the man who started his Funny Car career by winning the pre-season PRO Superstar Shootout in Bradenton, Fla. “We’ve been trying to get some miles per hour out of this thing all season long. Hopefully, we can keep it up the rest of the weekend and the rest of the season.” The former Rookie-of-the-Year’s speed was the third fastest overall this season, faster than any Top Fuel dragster. The only car that’s been faster is Bob Tasca’s Mustang which ran 338.51 mph at Seattle, Wash., and 338.77 mph at Sonoma, Calif. The 29-year-old, who won five races in the regular season including the Labor Day U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis, Ind., is closing in on boss and mentor John Force’s Funny Car record of 13 No. 1 starts in a single season. Force was No. 1 in 13 of 19 events in 1996, the year he became the first drag racer recognized as Driver of the Year for all American motorsports. Hight, who stepped out of the seat this year for medical reasons, was the No. 1 qualifier nine times in his second pro season in 2006. Beckman, making his first Countdown start in relief of Force, who remains sidelined after a June 23 crash in Richmond, Va., briefly sat atop the ladder with a time of 3.869 seconds at a speed of 330.80 mph in the PEAK Antifreeze and Coolant Camaro. He will move to the final sessions Saturday in the No. 3 slot behind Alexis DeJoria, whose 3.867 alongside Prock nudged him for No. 2 on Saturday. “We got (qualifying bonus) points in both sessions,” Beckman said of his Friday performance. “Our car did everything the crew chiefs asked. I can’t wait for race day (but) we’re going to try to get some more points tomorrow. They’re all important when you start from the middle of the pack. The problem is old No. 1 (Prock) keeps gobbling up the most points.” Beckman, the 2012 series champion in Funny Car, won this race the last time he ran it in 2019. Back on the track on which she set the current NHRA national record of 3.623 seconds on Sept. 14, 2019, and on which she has a higher winning percentage than any other in the Mission Series, Brittany Force secured the provisional No. 10 position Friday with a solid 3.770 at 329.75 mph. She’ll have work to do Saturday to put herself in a lane choice situation for Sunday’s finals. “We’re going down the racetrack,” Force said (she ran 3.816 in the first session), “but (tenth) is not the position we planed to be in so we have a lot of work to do tomorrow.” |
