{"id":94454,"date":"2024-01-16T09:49:12","date_gmt":"2024-01-16T17:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=94454"},"modified":"2024-01-16T12:11:46","modified_gmt":"2024-01-16T20:11:46","slug":"prock-to-substitute-for-hight-in-jfr-funny-car","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/prock-to-substitute-for-hight-in-jfr-funny-car\/","title":{"rendered":"Prock to Substitute for Hight in JFR Funny Car"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Robert Hight and Austin Prock celebrate victories – John Force Racing photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A medical issue is changing the face of NHRA\u2019s Mission Foods Drag Racing Series Funny Car category. John Force Racing (JFR) announced, early January 15 that Austin Prock will take over the driving duties of the Cornwell Tools Chevrolet Camaro SS flopper from Robert Hight, who is standing down as this season begins to address such issue.<\/p>\n

Hight, a three-time champion in the Flopper category, owns 65 career victories in the class and set the national record for speed and elapsed time in class in 2017 at Sonoma Raceway, en route to earning his second national title. He has the third-most wins in Funny Car, behind John Force\u2019s 155 and Ron Capps\u2019 75. The team\u2019s announcement said the 54-year-old, who is president of John Force Racing, would \u201ctemporarily step out of the driver\u2019s seat for personal, medical reasons.\u201d No further details were given.<\/p>\n

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Robert Hight finished second in NHRA’s Funny Car standings the past two seasons – Anne Proffit photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This move opens the door for Prock, a versatile racer who succeeded in open wheel racing before joining JFR to pilot the Montana Brand, Rocky Mountain Twist Top Fuel entry. As the 28-year-old Prock is licensed in both Top Fuel and Funny Car, it is a relatively seamless procedure to install the driver in a Funny Car tuned by his father, Jimmy Prock with assistant crew chief duties delegated to brother Thomas Prock.<\/p>\n

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Robert Hight is a voracious competitor – Anne Proffit photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI have to put my health first,\u201d Hight acknowledged. \u201cOnce this is resolved, I\u2019ll be back. I\u2019ll be looking forward to racing again; I\u2019m a competitor and can\u2019t wait to get back to doing what I love. I know Austin will do a great job in my place for Cornwell Tools, AAA, Chevy and all of the John Force Racing sponsors. I have no doubt he\u2019ll win races,\u201d he said. Hight has been runner-up in NHRA\u2019s final standings for the Funny Car class the past two seasons and five times overall.<\/p>\n

This news comes shortly after the team learned that Frank Tiegs, who has supported JFR by marketing the team to such partners as Flav-R-Pak, Montana Brand and Rocky Mountain Twist, is withdrawing his support, which meant that both Top Fuel entries, for Prock and two-time champion Brittany Force, were losing key financial support. Prock had full-season participation from Tiegs\u2019 entities, while Brittany Force\u2019s squad enjoyed support from Tiegs for at least half a season. After finishing second to Brittany Force in 2022, Prock was eighth at the close of the 2023 season, just behind his teammate. Austin Prock has four career Top Fuel wins to his credit.<\/p>\n

Before this issue arrived, Hight was looking forward to the 2025 campaign. Always a fierce competitor, he\u2019ll continue his duties as president of the company as he recovers. Hight has raced with injuries in the past, notably in 2018 when he was in the thick of a championship fight and still competed in the final three races with a broken collarbone.<\/p>\n

For Prock, the ability to compete in Funny Car, arguably a more difficult car to race than a Top Fuel rail, with assistance from both his father and brother is a dream come true. \u201cFirst off, all the best wishes to Robert and his health,\u201d Austin Prock said. \u201cIt\u2019s been a dreams of mine to drive a Funny Car with my family, but this is not the way I hoped it would happen. It\u2019s bittersweet,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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Austin Prock’s drag racing career has had its ups and downs – Anne Proffit photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI\u2019m grateful for the opportunity and thankful to John and all of our partners, especially Cornwell Tools, AAA and Chevy for giving me a chance to fill this seat. It\u2019s a huge role to fill, considering how outstanding of a driver Robert is and how successful this team is. It\u2019s been a whirlwind of an off-season, so I\u2019m just ready to get back to racing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Austin Prock makes his Funny Car debut at the SCAG Power Equipment PRO Superstar Shootout, taking place at Bradenton Motorsports Park in Florida February 8-10. The 2024 Mission Foods NHRA Drag Racing Series season gets underway the weekend of March 8-10 with the 55th annual Amalie Motor Oil Gatornationals at Gainesville Raceway.<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Austin Prock is getting a shot at Funny Car as teammate Robert Hight temporarily steps away to address health concerns.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":94458,"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],"tags":[1554,6606,39,10134,10133,38,423,10128,7,440,73],"class_list":["post-94454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-news","category-racing","tag-aaa","tag-austin-prock","tag-chevrolet","tag-chevy-camaro-ss","tag-cornwell-tools","tag-funny-car","tag-john-force-racing","tag-mission-foods-nhra-drag-racing-series","tag-nhra","tag-robert-hight","tag-top-fuel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Hight-and-Prock-lift-trophies-together-min.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-ozs","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94454","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=94454"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94465,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94454\/revisions\/94465"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}