Photography: John Force Racing / Gary Nastase / Auto Imagery
BRISTOL, Tenn. (June 6, 2025) – Poised to run side-by-side for the provisional No. 1 qualifying position Friday evening at Bristol Dragway, Jack Beckman and Austin Prock were foiled by heavy rain that brought a premature end to first day preliminaries at the 23rd NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals.
Unable to make the second of their two Friday runs, the John Force Racing teammates wound up third and fourth in the first day order based on times posted in Q1.
“It’s a bummer we didn’t get to make a run in the second session,” Beckman said. “Austin and I were the quickest two Funny Cars in session one which dictates that we run at the back of the pack for the second session. Because of delays and weather, we’re the only two Funny Cars that didn’t get to make a second run.
“However, the silver lining is we know that we’re solidly qualified and we’ll have lane choice for the first round of the Mission Challenge tomorrow.”
Forced into a back-up car after crashing his PEAK Antifreeze and Coolant Chevrolet SS in last week’s semifinals, Beckman showed no ill effects, cruising to a time of 3.971 and 323.74 miles per hour on his lone Friday attempt in the car in which he won two races in last year’s Countdown to the Championship.
“Remember this is the 2024 car,” Beckman noted. “The last run it made before it unloaded here was the winning run at the World Finals at Pomona and the quickest elapsed time (3.812) of my career and we unloaded here with the quickest elapsed time of session one, so the PEAK squad is right back where we belong.”
Prock, who last year swept everything at the Thunder Valley Nationals, qualifying No. 1 and posting quick time of every round on the way to the winners’ circle, was second in the opening session at 3.995, 320.28 in his Cornwell Tools Chevy SS.
“Great Q1,” Prock said. “Both of our JFR cars made really clean runs and had the field covered pretty well so that was definitely a confidence booster going into Q2. Unfortunately, we were the only two cars that didn’t get to run down the racetrack because of the rain. We only got bumped down to 3rd and 4th which isn’t too bad.
“Obviously, we wanted to get a shot at this cooler session tonight and I think we could have made some really excellent runs. We’ll cross our fingers and do the rain dance tomorrow, and hopefully we’ll be able to get at least one run in but if not, Jack and I are on opposite sides of the ladder, and we’ll roll into Sunday and try and do some damage.”
Before the rains sent them back to the JFR compound Friday afternoon without an opportunity to respond, Alexis DeJoria (3.948) and Ron Capps (3.960) had moved to the top of the ladder.
There was no second round of qualifying at all in Top Fuel where Brittany Force was No. 5 in the provisional order after a solid 3.899 at a shut off 288.95 mph in a Monster Energy dragster coming off an impressive win last week in the New England Nationals. “Solid first pass right off the trailer for this Monster Energy team here in Bristol,” Force said. “We were really looking forward to making a run in the second session because we knew the conditions would be cooler and that’s where this team really thrives. Unfortunately, the rain came, and we were unable to get on track and make that second run. "Hopefully the rain stays away, and we can get two more runs in tomorrow and get a nice race day tune-up for Sunday.”
Weather permitting, two final qualifying sessions Saturday will set the 16-car lineups for Sunday eliminations. In conjunction with Saturday qualifying, Beckman and Brittany will be participants in the Mission Foods 2Fast/2Tasty Challenge in which he will be seeking his second straight win and she will be pursuing her second overall.
