Brittany Force and the Monster Energy / Flav-R-Pac Chevrolet dragster team will start race day from the No. 1 spot for the second time this season, 44th time of her career and second time at the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Robert Hight and the Flav-R-Pac / Cornwell Tools / AAA Chevy Camaro SS will start from No. 6 with John Force and the BlueDEF PLATINUM Chevy right behind in seventh. Austin Prock and the Montana Brand / Rocky Mountain Twist dragster team round out John Force Racing qualifying in the No. 12 spot.
Brittany Force and the Monster Energy / Flav-R-Pac team earned their No. 1 qualifying spot off their 3.697-second pass at 335.73 mph from Friday evening. They followed it up with a 3.751-second pass at 334.15 mph early Saturday afternoon. Crew Chief David Grubnic took advantage of the fourth qualifying session to test. The Monster Energy machine would run into tire smoke for only a 6.831 at 84.07.
“Our Monster Energy team’s very happy, we had three good runs down the racetrack, the one yesterday got us into the top spot, and we stayed there. Overall, a good start to the weekend. The hard work starts tomorrow on race day. We’re looking for a win. We were successful here last year, winning both the spring and fall events. It was our first win of the season, and we’d love to do it again,” Force said. “We knew coming into that second run today that it was going be risky, it was either going to go, or it wasn’t. But we were safe enough in the show with that 3.69 from yesterday that we wanted to use today to test. So, it didn’t quite go down there, but again, that was the plan. We still are testing some things. We’re still probably going to be, if we’re well qualified and have the opportunity, we’ll probably do it again in the future.”
Austin Prock and the Montana Brand / RMT dragster team saw the most improvement in the final qualifying session. They opened the day with tire smoke early to coast to a 6.782-second pass at 140.34 mph before laying down a respectable 3.848 at 315.27 to keep them in the No. 12 spot.
“Not ideally the qualifying effort we wanted, be we are making improvements in areas each attempt,” Prock said. “I’m confident this Montana Brand / Rocky Mountain Twist team will be a contender tomorrow. We ended up 12th but we also did that last race in Pomona at the Winternationals and ended up getting to the finals. Hopefully, that’s the case again.”
Robert Hight and the Flav-R-Pac Chevy secured their No. 6 spot on Friday with a 3.942-second pass. Coming into Saturday, Hight’s Camaro would smoke the tires down track in the first session of the day for a 4.591 at 180.50 before laying down a 3.958 at 322.11.
“Not a bad qualifying effort for this Flav-R-Pac Chevy team. Not quite where we wanted to be, there was more out there for us but it’s looking good for tomorrow,” Hight said. “We just need to keep our heads down and do what we know how to do. We’ll get the job done, with Four-Wide, just need to be quicker than two to move on until the finals. Excited to see what we can do, see what the day brings.”
After smoking the tires in the first qualifying session, Force and the BlueDEF team found some consistency with a 3.945 on Friday afternoon followed up by a 3.958-second pass at 324.83 mph on Saturday early afternoon. He closed out qualifying with a 3.958 at 324.83 mph and will start race day from the No. 6 spot.
“Better weekend already. Good to be back in the BlueDEF Chevy. Love coming to race in Las Vegas, love the Four-Wide, Bruton Smith’s baby,” Force said. “Three decent runs, not bad, Danny Hood and Tim Fabrisi, they’ve got it figured out. I’m excited about tomorrow. Should be a good day.”
The NHRA Four-Wide Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway continues eliminations scheduled for Sunday at noon. Television coverage on FOX Sports 1 (FS1) continues with a qualifying show Saturday at 9:30 p.m. ET. Eliminations will air on FS1 Sunday at 9:30 p.m. ET.
This story was originally published on April 15, 2023. 
