John Force and the PEAK Antifreeze and Coolant Chevrolet Camaro SS team picked up a win Saturday in the Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty NHRA Challenge at the Dodge Power Brokers NHRA U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis Raceway Park. Robert Hight and the Cornwell Tools / AAA Chevy Camaro SS moved up to the provisional No. 1 while Brittany Force and the Flav-R-Pac / Monster Energy dragster team stayed No. 2 and Austin Prock in the Montana Brand / Rocky Mountain Twist dragster stayed No. 10.
In the second qualifying session, John Force and Robert Hight faced off in the Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty NHRA Challenge as a rematch from the Brainerd, Minnesota semifinals. This time, Force and the PEAK Chevy would get the better of Hight. With a .022-second reaction time and a 4.012-second pass at 321.022 mph Force would have the holeshot victory over Hight and the Cornwell Tools Chevy’s .088 reaction time and 3.976 pass at 319.07. Force’s run was also an improvement from his Friday night pass.
In the finals of the Mission Foods Challenge, Force took down reigning world champion Ron Capps for his first win of the season. Force would take everything he could on the tree with a .017-second reaction time but he wouldn’t need it running a 3.989-second pass at 328.78 mph while Capps smoked the tires for only a 4.844 at 163.75.
“I do what I do, and I was really lucky in this Mission Foods deal. It was almost a red light against Robert. He knows it; I screwed up. Then with Capps, I took all the bulbs to New York. But then I got to race Capps and the Don “The Snake” Prudhomme car and that means a lot. He used to whoop me up every week,” Force said. “In the final, the last thing I said to my crew chief Danny Hood was, look where we’re at. Let’s get out of the bottom half. He and Tim Fabrisi both said go for the win. So, I jumped on it. PEAK they’re happy that I can put this Chevy Camaro in the winner’s circle. I’ve got a lot of work cut out. I’m in the Countdown now, I want to see where it goes. I’m no spring chicken so I got a lot of work to do. It’s a good feeling. I’ve won Indy 5 times, but it was a good feeling to be here.”
Force’s win wouldn’t move him up in qualifying, but it was an improvement in performance landing him in the No. 12 spot to start the final day of qualifying at the U.S. Nationals.
Hight, who entered the day qualified No. 2 with his 3.886-second pass from Friday evening closed out day two of qualifying with two solid qualifying passes. After coming up short in the Mission Foods Challenge to Force, Hight and the Cornwell Tools Camaro would lay down a stellar 3.853-second pass at 329.67 mph to move into the provisional No. 1 qualifying position with two sessions left on Sunday.
“So far, our first three runs have been here have been pretty impressive and Jimmy Prock has pretty much called them every single run within a hundredth. This Cornwell Tools Camaro is really responding to what he and his son Thomas are doing and that’s exciting. Especially this time of year. It’s exactly what we need; we’ve kind of been all over the place all year. But I really feel like it’s all coming together at the right time. It’s a big race. These next two days are going to be exciting. I can’t wait for it,” Hight said. “When this hot rod responds to what Jimmy is doing and runs what he says it’s going to run, you can’t be more confident than that. The 3.97 today in the heat was a more impressive run than the 3.85 tonight because it was really hot out, almost 130 degrees and that’s what we are going to be faced with the next two days.”
Brittany Force and the Flav-R-Pac team kept up their impressive performance from Friday evening with the quickest pass of the second qualifying session at 3.815 seconds and 328.78 mph earning her four bonus points. Their third try down Indianapolis Raceway Park was another solid run at 3.737 and 332.26. The Flav-R-Pac team stays No. 2 from their Friday evening 3.709 pass.
Austin Prock and the Montana Brand team ran into a little trouble during their second attempt down the track. At about half-track, the Montana Brand dragster would lose traction and Prock would lift off the throttle crossing the finish line at only 5.555 seconds and 118.67 mph. Prock and his Chris Cunningham and Joe Barlam tuned dragster would pick things back up in the third session with a 3.848 pass at 296.44 mph. Prock stays No. 10 off his Friday night 3.781.
Competition at the Dodge Power Brokers NHRA U.S. Nationals at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park continues with qualifying Sunday at 1:30 and 5:00 p.m. which will also include competition in the Pep Boys Funny Car NHRA All-Star Callout. The Callout semifinals will be competed as an additional run unrelated to qualifying at 3:20 p.m. Eliminations are slated to begin on Memorial Day Monday at 10 a.m. Television coverage of the event begins on FOX Sports 1 (FS1) with qualifying shows Sunday at 11:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. ET. Eliminations coverage will have two shows on Monday, the first at noon ET on FS1 and the second at 2 p.m. ET on FOX Broadcasting Network.
This story was originally published on September 3, 2023. 
