Austin Prock completed a near perfect weekend

Austin Prock completed a near perfect weekend at Pacific Raceways Sunday, driving his Cornwell Tools Chevrolet Camaro SS past Paul Lee’s Dodge in the final round to secure a wire-to-wire victory in the 35th NHRA Northwest Nationals.

“There’s nothing better than racing for family and racing for John Force,” said the runaway point leader. “An amazing day, another great day for this Cornwell Tools Camaro. I mean this year has been unreal, man. I can’t even put into words all the success that we’ve had. It’s just been a blur and I’ve been hanging on.”

In becoming just the fourth driver to win the Northwest’s biggest drag race in both the Funny Car and Top Fuel categories, Prock earned the most points possible and will move on to this week’s Sonoma Nationals with a 256-point cushion over Bob Tasca III and Matt Hagan, who share second place with just three races remaining in the regular season.

It was another three-hat weekend for the former oval track and Top Fuel racer who, in addition to getting a red Mission Foods hat for qualifying No. 1 and a black one for winning Sunday’s main event, also got a yellow topper for his Saturday win in the Mission #2Fast2Tasty NHRA Challenge.

“(Force) told me before I got here, he said ‘hold down the fort for me,’ and we did just that,” Prock beamed. 

The only thing the fourth generation racer didn’t leave with was the 3.832 second track record set in 2015 by Del Worsham. He came close, though, twice accelerating through the 1000-foot course in 3.838 seconds. His Sunday sequence on a track known for its challenges, was 3.838, 3.880, 3.884 and 3.875, the latter coupled to a speed of 334.57 miles per hour.

Prock’s fourth Funny Car victory equaled his three-season production at the wheel of the Montana Brand/Rocky Mountain Twist dragster he drove as JFR teammate to Brittany Force. Rocky Mountain Twist was another of the late Frank Tiegs’ companies.