It’s safe to say nitro Funny Car driver Austin Prock has been on a heater all season.

And he certainly didn’t cool down this weekend.

Prock, driving the Cornwell Tools Camaro for John Force Racing, won his sixth race of the season Sunday at the Pep Boys Nationals in Reading, Pennsylvania. Prock clocked a 3.896-second elapsed time at 332.51 mph to defeat his teammate Jack Beckman’s 3.951, 330.88 mph lap at Maple Grove Raceway.

“It feels great to rack up some points and get a little bit of a gap over second again after losing about 300 points” when the points were reset for the Countdown, Prock said. “It definitely feels good, and this is the best way you can start off the Countdown. We were No. 1 qualifier, and we got points almost every round. The thing was flying and ended up holding another Wally. Kudos to this Cornwell Tools team for allowing me to do this.”

It has been an incredible 13 days for Prock. On Sept. 2, he won the prestigious U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis, and he followed that up by winning in Reading,  the first race in the six-race Countdown to the Championship.

“You kind of always have it in the back of your head that the easiest way to do it is just drive the thing,” Prock said about the tricky conditions of Maple Grove Raceway Sunday. “Because if you are thinking about the future, you’re not thinking about the present. You just have to stay on the gas and feel the tire and give it what it needs. This place is notorious for wild racing – a lot of races won on hole shots and pedalfest. It is always exciting here in Pennsylvania, and maybe that has something to do with awesome fans.

“I won a pedalfest here in 2022 in the semifinals against Antron (Brown in Top Fuel). We both blew them off at the hit, and those are fun races to win when you actually have to get over the throttle and get that thing hooked back and turn the win light on.”

From 2019-23, Prock drove a Top Fuel dragster for JFR, finishing a career-best third in the points standings in 2022. He collected four national-event wins and three No. 1 qualifiers.

Then, in 2024, he was thrust into the driver’s seat of a JFR Funny Car when three-time champ Robert Hight was sidelined with a medical condition.

He has 11 No. 1 qualifiers in 15 races in his JFR Camaro, winning from the No. 1 spot Sunday when he defeated Mike Smith, Chad Green, Bob Tasca III before edging Beckman. Beckman has replaced the injured John Force in the driver’s seat.

“It was great,” Prock said about racing Beckman in the finals. “We saw the ladder (Saturday night), and we have two cars capable of meeting in the final round. That was the goal (Sunday), and we executed perfectly. Jack drove his tail off. He won that round in the semis (against Alexis DeJoria), and I’m really proud of him. He’s getting comfortable, and he’s becoming lethal in that car. He was mowing the tree down and that thing runs as good as any of these cars out here. 

“I worked with Chris Cunningham last year and Danny Hood and Tim Fabrisi. It is great to see them back out here and having success right off the bat.” 

Prock extended his points lead to 86 points over Tasca with five races remaining in the season. He’s not counting out Beckman, either.

“We knew what that car was capable of, and we all know what Jack Beckman is capable of. That's an outstanding car, and they are going to be a pain in everybody’s neck in this category, including ourselves. We just have to keep doing what we are doing, and as a team if we can qualify on opposite sides of the ladder we can meet in the final round a lot in these playoffs.”    

Austin took a moment to talk about what the sport of drag racing means in his family.

“My grandpa (Tom) is everything,” Austin said. “My great-grandfather … he started circle-track racing, racing midgets and Indy cars back in the 1930s and ’40s, and my grandfather got us involved in drag racing. He started out street racing in the 1960s and worked his way up to running nitro Funny Cars for the likes of Tom McEwen. I wouldn’t be here without my grandfather, obviously, and it is really cool to get a win for him on his birthday.”

Prock, and his father, Jimmy, his world-championship tuner, have had plenty of success in Reading the past several years. With Jimmy tuning, Hight won at Maple Grove in nitro Funny Car in 2022-23, and Austin was the Top Fuel champ at the facility in 2022. Now he’s the Funny Car winner in 2024.

“This racetrack seems to like the Prock family,” Austin said.

Austin acknowledges his circle-track racing background has aided his drag-racing growth behind the wheel.   

“I started racing circle track when I was 10 years old, and I got in a fuel car when I was 22 or 23 years old,” he said. “Having that seat-of-the-pants feel really goes far and beyond when you’re driving one of these (Funny Cars), especially when the car loses traction. Not tooting my own horn, but I can get that thing hooked up better than a lot of the drivers out here, and that is a 100 percent payoff to circle-track racing. 

“I just love driving race cars, and anything with four wheels and a lot of horsepower I’m in for.”