John Force Racing Teams Reach NHRA Finals With Momentum

POMONA – It’s been a tough year for the John Force Racing team in the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series.

As the series heads to the In-N-Out Burger NHRA Finals at Pomona Dragstrip this weekend, the John Force Racing team has reasons to think and reasons to rejoice. John Force was back with his drivers and teams for the races at Las Vegas Motor Speedway two weeks ago for the first time since his racing accident in June left him with serious brain damage.

Force, the face of the team and the face of the series for nearly 40 years as a 16-time NHRA champion, experienced a devastating crash in Richmond, Virginia, and spent months in hospitals and trauma centers recovering.

The drivers missed races. For a while, the team spent more time with Force in hospitals than on race tracks. It took several weeks before Force, 75, went to his home in Yorba Linda to recover.

During the tough times, two John Force Racing drivers found reasons to celebrate. His daughter, Brittany Force, a Top Fuel driver in the NHRA series, won her first race in more than two years in Las Vegas.

Austin Prock, a Funny Car driver for John Force Racing, also won in Las Vegas and is closing in on his first championship in the division.

Brittany Force said after the races in Las Vegas that it was “one of the biggest wins in our camp.”

Prock said it was a bit of a double-edged sword race this year.

“We’ve had the emotions of John’s accident, which was a terrible time in the season. We have had so much success too. It was a bit of both. This year, things have been very good, but also very bad,” Prock said.

“You just have to roll with the punches. Life is difficult sometimes. We just had to deal with it as best we could. I felt like it made us all a little bit stronger.”

Prock won for the eighth time in Funny Car this season. All he has to do is make a successful qualifying run at Pomona to clinch the Funny Car championship, the first of his career.

“The championship is a big thing to celebrate with what we’ve been through,” Prock said.

“The team is still holding strong and getting the job done. I think that’s something to be proud of.”

Brittany Force said it was a special moment to watch her father on the track in Las Vegas as she won for the first time in two years.

“With my dad being here for the first time since his crash, it wasn’t pressure, it was more of a heart for everyone on the team,” Brittany Force said after the Las Vegas races on Monday. “We always want to come here and win, but with him being here this weekend, after everything he’s been through, there was definitely more heart behind it. We wanted to get him in that winner’s circle.”

It was Brittany Force’s seventeenth Top Fuel win and her first since the 2022 Las Vegas fall races.

“We’ve been putting this together since the countdown started and we saw this progress with No. 1 qualifiers and rounds on race day. We knew it was coming,” said Brittany Force. “We knew we were getting closer and we were getting close, and I felt good about Vegas. We have had success here in the past and it is one of my favorite tracks on the circuit and my whole family was here.”

“My father was here. I just had a good feeling about it and to get here and win that’s what our team needed. We have always remained positive and always remained confident, but it hurts when you don’t win for two seasons.”

The John Force Racing teams have some momentum heading into the NHRA Finals in Pomona. For Prock, it will be a fitting end to a rewarding, albeit challenging, season.