Austin Prock completed a near perfect weekend at Pacific Raceways Sunday, driving his Cornwell Tools Chevrolet Camaro SS past Paul Lee’s Dodge in the final round to secure a wire-to-wire victory in the 35th NHRA Northwest Nationals.
“There’s nothing better than racing for family and racing for John Force,” said the runaway point leader. “An amazing day, another great day for this Cornwell Tools Camaro. I mean this year has been unreal, man. I can’t even put into words all the success that we’ve had. It’s just been a blur and I’ve been hanging on.”
In becoming just the fourth driver to win the Northwest’s biggest drag race in both the Funny Car and Top Fuel categories, Prock earned the most points possible and will move on to this week’s Sonoma Nationals with a 256-point cushion over Bob Tasca III and Matt Hagan, who share second place with just three races remaining in the regular season.
It was another three-hat weekend for the former oval track and Top Fuel racer who, in addition to getting a red Mission Foods hat for qualifying No. 1 and a black one for winning Sunday’s main event, also got a yellow topper for his Saturday win in the Mission #2Fast2Tasty NHRA Challenge.
“(Force) told me before I got here, he said ‘hold down the fort for me,’ and we did just that,” Prock beamed.
The only thing the fourth generation racer didn’t leave with was the 3.832 second track record set in 2015 by Del Worsham. He came close, though, twice accelerating through the 1000-foot course in 3.838 seconds. His Sunday sequence on a track known for its challenges, was 3.838, 3.880, 3.884 and 3.875, the latter coupled to a speed of 334.57 miles per hour.
Prock’s fourth Funny Car victory equaled his three-season production at the wheel of the Montana Brand/Rocky Mountain Twist dragster he drove as JFR teammate to Brittany Force. Rocky Mountain Twist was another of the late Frank Tiegs’ companies.
While it was not the “welcome back” result she had anticipated, getting back behind the wheel of her national record-holding Flav-R-Pac Top Fuel dragster was good therapy for Brittany in the aftermath of her dad’s 300 mph crash last month at Richmond, Va.
“I’m really glad to be back after a month out of the seat,” said the two-time Top Fuel world champion, “to be back with my team and to just get back in the swing of things. It was also great being here with the Frank Tiegs family. We haven’t seen them since last year and to just be able to sit down, hang out with them and reminisce and talk about old times with Frank. He always told me ‘go out there and have fun’ and we did that today.”
After missing the Summit Nationals in Norwalk, Ohio, while 16-time Funny Car Champion John Force battled through the effects of a TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury), the 38-year-old qualified in the No. 3 position but couldn’t duplicate her qualifying performance in round one where she was eliminated by eight-time series champ Tony Schumacher after her car slowed to 4.271 seconds at only 193.21 mph.
“It’s really unfortunate,” she said of the early exit. “We had a really good qualifying weekend. We qualified third and made four solid passes. I left good alongside Schumacher. We were out ahead. I couldn’t see him….and then the car just quit. Pan pressure automatically shut our car off. We had no power (and) I was just coasting to the finish line.
“This was a special weekend,” she said. “My dad’s at home watching (and) Frank Tiegs and Flav-R-Pac were on the car. We wanted to do well for them.”
Despite Sunday’s result, the 2013 NHRA Rookie of the Year stayed tenth in points and remained optimistic about her chances in the upcoming Countdown to the Championship.
JFR PR
