How does one top the debut Austin Prock enjoyed a year ago when, in his first competitive appearance in a drag racing Funny Car, he and his Cornwell Tools Chevrolet SS crushed the competition in the inaugural PRO Superstar Shootout at Bradenton Motorsports Park?
The answer is a simple one: you just make it double.
The 29-year-old son of crew chief Jimmy Prock and younger brother of crew member Thomas Prock will be the favorite to do just that when qualifying for the second iteration of the sport’s biggest non-points event begins with a single pro session on Thursday. Three more sessions Friday will set the eight-car lineup for Saturday’s eliminations.
“Being the defending champion always gives you a little extra confidence,” said the man whose competitive career began not on the dragstrip on which his grandfather, Tom, excelled in the 1970s but on dirt and pavement ovals on which he drove quarter midgets and sprint cars prepared by his brother.
“I’m looking forward to hitting the gas again on this Cornwell Tools Chevy SS,” Prock said. “As a team, we’ve put together some really nice pieces, and I can’t wait to see how they handle. I’m just ready to get back into the swing of things. This Cornwell Tools team is just so exceptional. My plan this year is the same as it was last year and that’s just to not mess it up for them.”
The 2019 NHRA Rookie-of-the-Year at the wheel of a JFR Top Fuel dragster, Prock didn’t mess up much of anything last year en route to winning the Mission Foods Championship in his first Funny Car season.
In addition to becoming the fourth different JFR driver to win as many as eight races in a season (after the team’s founder, JFR President Robert Hight, and Tony Pedregon), he also broke Force’s single-season qualifying record by starting his Chevy from the front in 15 of 20 events.
He then applied an exclamation point at the season-ending In-N-Out Finals at Pomona, Calif., where he became the first driver in the NHRA series to break the 340-mile-per-hour barrier, boosting the official NHRA national record to 341.68 mph while posting the quickest time in the last seven seasons at 3.804 seconds.
Nevertheless, he knows there will be more chances to rewrite history.
“Heading to testing for the first time of the year is always exciting,” he said, “and we’ll take advantage of all the chances we get before we start racing for real. We’re hoping to drop the door strong, but if not, I know what this team is capable of and how quickly they can turn it around.”
This story was originally published on February 5, 2025. 
