{"id":61743,"date":"2019-04-26T07:41:32","date_gmt":"2019-04-26T14:41:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=61743"},"modified":"2019-04-26T07:41:32","modified_gmt":"2019-04-26T14:41:32","slug":"austin-procks-got-a-hot-hand-in-nhra-top-fuel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/austin-procks-got-a-hot-hand-in-nhra-top-fuel\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin Prock\u2019s Got a Hot Hand in NHRA Top Fuel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Austin Prock has had an auspicious opening to his NHRA Mello Yello Top Fuel career. Announced as the second dragster driver for John Force Racing (JFR) the week of the season opening Lucas Oil Winternationals on the Auto Club Raceway at Pomona, the third generation racer was impressive from the moment he first left the water box, winning a round in his first race.<\/p>\n

That was impressive, of course, but not terribly unexpected for a driver whose father is one of the most respected tuners in the business. Jimmy Prock is currently making crew chief adjustments for Funny Car points leader Robert Hight at JFR. Prock\u2019s grandfather, Tom Prock, was a heck of a racer in his day and, after retiring from the driver\u2019s seat, helped advance piston development at Venolia before recently retiring from business to the Indianapolis area.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Austin
Jimmy Prock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Austin Prock has advanced from the first round in three of his first five races, falling to Clay Millican in Gainesville and coming in fourth at the first four-wide contest of the season at Las Vegas. In Pomona, Phoenix and Houston Prock, now 23, found his way to the quarterfinals. That\u2019s impressive for a rookie in this sport, even one with a good deal of racing experience. He was making a name for himself in open wheel, circle-track competition (with 27 wins) before switching to straight-line competition.<\/p>\n

Now, Prock is ready to improve, in particular at this weekend at zMAX Dragway near Charlotte, N.C., where he\u2019ll contest his second Four-Wide competition. Getting off the line with three other racers was a big ask for the rookie.<\/p>\n

\"Austin<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a little different than I expected, but we caught on and we\u2019re pretty confident heading into this weekend,\u201d he said. At Las Vegas Prock struggled, but recognized the errors he was making in the cockpit.<\/p>\n

Currently 11th in the standings, Prock does like \u201cthe fact that you can beat three guys at once and you can even beat three guys on a hole shot,\u201d when racing four-wide. \u201cFor a driver, that gets me pumped to try and leave on three people. That\u2019s a cool part of the race, but this is just something that\u2019s different. It\u2019s exciting to switch things up every once in a while and I\u2019m really looking forward to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Consistency is a virtue in NHRA drag racing and, at Houston two weeks ago, Prock had consistent qualifying passes in the 3.70-range that earned him seventh starting spot.<\/p>\n

\"Austin
Ronnie Thompson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cMy reaction times were killer on Sunday,\u201d Prock noted. He beat fellow rookie Jordan Vandergriff (for the second time) before falling to reigning Top Fuel champion Steve Torrence. His team, led by crew chiefs Ronnie Thompson and Jon Schaffer, came together just as quickly as the sponsorship deal with Montana Brand \/ Rocky Mountain Twist, put together with the help of legendary racer Don \u201cSnake\u201d Prudhomme.<\/p>\n

\"Austin
Jon Schaffer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWorking with this team, it really just makes the learning process way shorter for me,\u201d Prock allowed. \u201cAll three of my teammates are world champions,\u201d he said of Brittany Force, Hight and 16-time Funny Car champion John Force. \u201cThey\u2019ve been there, done that. If I have any questions, I can go to them right off the bat. My ears are always open and that definitely helps. Working with my dad, he\u2019s one of the greatest ever and he\u2019s worked with a lot of talented drivers, so anything he tells me, I\u2019m going to make sure and listen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Austin Prock has yet to make a pass down the zMAX Dragway strip, acknowledged as \u201cThe Bellagio of dragstrips,\u201d his fellow JFR teammates have accumulated a resume of eight wins at both the spring and fall events.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur Montana Brand \/Rocky Mountain Top Fuel dragster is hot right now. We turned things around at the last race in Houston and this next race is going to be a big one. It\u2019ll be the first time I get to race in front of my brother, Thomas, and my whole family will be there. I want to win this deal. I\u2019ve got one four-wide event under my belt and feel confident I\u2019ll do my job on the starting line, and I know my team will back me with one bad hot rod.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Austin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Austin Prock has had an auspicious opening to his NHRA Mello Yello Top Fuel career.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":61746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3465,3470,5029,3399],"tags":[5614,6606,2,423,41,7,1632],"class_list":["post-61743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-news","category-racing","category-nhra","tag-anne-proffit","tag-austin-prock","tag-drag-racing","tag-john-force-racing","tag-news","tag-nhra","tag-racing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Austin-Prock-min.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-g3R","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61743"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61750,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61743\/revisions\/61750"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}