NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

With just two races to go in the 2024 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series season, Austin Prock has a solid points lead that many expect to carry him to his first Funny Car world championship and the 23rd for John Force Racing.

Prock’s Cornwell Tools Chevy Camaro — tuned by his father, Jimmy, and brother, Thomas, and Nate Hildahl — has been the class of the field all season, accumulating seven wins, three runner-ups, and four semifinal finishes, and has failed to reach at least the semifinals only four times in 18 events.

The Procks also won seven of 12 Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty NHRA Challenge events, a specialty event held during qualifying.

And while the team’s victories may define a championship season, it will be the domination of the season’s performance standards that will long be remembered as the hallmark of the year.

The Cornwell team has secured a single-season-record-tying 13 No. 1 qualifying berths as well 12 low e.t. honors and five top speed marks. On five occasions this season, the team swept all three of those performance accomplishments at the same event, and four other times they had both the No. 1 spot and low e.t. At only four events this season did the team not earn any of those accolades.

The "Prock Rocket" has also made the three quickest runs of the season — 3.813 in Dallas, 3.814 in St. Louis, and 3.820 in Gainesville — and recorded five of the season's 10 quickest passes.

Prock's 13th No. 1, which came at the recent Texas NHRA FallNationals, tied the record set by his team owner, class legend John Force, in 1996, and he could easily break the mark at the year's final two events. Prock's 12 low e.t.s also put him in line to tie Force's other record of 14 low e.t.s, also set in 1996, and the team seems capable of strong performances in cool and hot venues alike.

"We have a pretty solid notebook right now, and we can run down a racetrack that's 140 degrees or a track that's 80 degrees," Prock assessed in Dallas. "We have the car to beat right now, and we have been all season long, so we just got to stay in our lane, focus on what we need to do, and do the best we can.

"We do have a decent lead right now, but there's still a long way to go. Everyone gets racked up tight, and you go into Pomona, and it's points and a half. So, everyone needs to do the best of their ability, and we'll see how it shakes out. This story's already written; we just haven't seen it yet."

The only area where the Procks have been outshined has been in the speed category, where Bob Tasca III has set top speed nine times, including in Somnona, where Tasca was the No. 1 qualifier, set low e.t., and top speed en route to victory, a feat matched only by Matt Hagan in winning the fall Charlotte event.