Photography: John Force Racing / Auto Imagery / Gary Nastase
Beckman, Brittany Ousted in Semifinals at Arizona Nationals
PHOENIX, Ariz. (March 23, 2025) – Reigning Funny Car World Champion
Austin Prock’s bid to repeat as Arizona Nationals Champion went up in
a cloud of tire smoke Sunday at Firebird Motorsports Park and with it
his first opportunity to secure Funny Car win No. 300 for John Force
Racing.
Trying to put the Cornwell Tools Chevrolet SS in the winners’ circle
for the fourth straight year at Firebird (Robert Hight won in 2022 and
2023), Prock lost to journeyman Paul Lee, who had his own problems but
got to the stripe first in 4.030 seconds at 313.22 miles per hour.
Prock, who reached the trophy round by narrowly defeating teammate Jack
Beckman and the PEAK Antifreeze and Coolant Chevy in the semifinals,
trailed in 4.507 seconds at only 240.68 mph, well off the 341.68 mph
national record-setting speed to which he accelerated to last November
at In-N-Out Pomona Dragstrip, the venue to which the Mission Foods tour
returns this week for the 65th annual Lucas Oil Winternationals.
Leaving Firebird without a trophy after putting all three cars in the
semifinals was a bitter pill for even team owner John Force to swallow
although the sport’s biggest winner remained typically upbeat.
“Well, I think it was a tricky racetrack,” Force said of the new
surface at Firebird. “But I think Jimmy Prock and his boy adapted
really good. Beckman, with PEAK, he did, too, and so did Brittany (the
second youngest of his racing daughters). At the end of the day, we had
a good outing. We have a couple new sponsors with Powers Affordable
Housing and my buddy John Powers and Graham Rahal Performance to work
with PEAK, Cornwell Tools, Monster Energy, Hendrickcars.com and
Chevrolet.”
The silver lining on a no-win weekend is that all three JFR drivers made
significant moves in the point standings. Beckman charging all the way
up to No. 2 in Funny Car and Brittany to No. 5 in Top Fuel at the wheel
of a resurgent Monster Energy dragster.
Prock will start the Winternationals No. 6 in the driver standings, a
10-position improvement from the spot he occupied after qualifying only
15th and bowing out in the first round of the season-opening
Gatornationals at Gainesville, Fla.
“Good weekend,” Prock said. “We rounded up some points in
qualifying and ended up qualifying second and made a final round
appearance. Proud of the team. We battled a lot of different issues,
different problems, and these guys persevered through all of that.
“Made some nice runs today,” said the 29-year-old who last year
broke Force’s single season record when he qualified No. 1 15 times in
20 races. “We’re heading in the right direction. We have a lot of
work to do heading into Pomona, but I know this thing is on the right
track and we’ll get one of those Wally’s here shortly.”
Beckman, whose PEAK Chevy was the most consistent car all weekend long
and the quickest on race day (3.910 seconds in the first round),
remained optimistic despite the narrow loss to Prock.
“Data acquisition wins championships,” said the 2012 Funny Car World
Champion. “Race wins give you data acquisition. We didn’t get the
race win (but) we got a lot of runs. We were the quickest car down the
racetrack multiple sessions this weekend. If we had a rerun on (the
semifinal), we would have fed it a little more power. Just a little
stouter on the tune up (but) these kinds of lessons are going to serve
us well for later in the year.”
Brittany’s day ended on particularly frustrating note when she had to
shut down the 12,000-horsepower engine in her Monster Energy Dragster
because of an oil leak detected by her crew on the burnout prior to her
semifinal match with eventual race winner Shawn Langdon.
“After a solid weekend it’s very frustrating to get eliminated the
way our team did,” said the two-time World Champion. “First round we
got past (Steve) Chrisman running a 3.705 at 331 mph and in round two,
we put a 3.779 on the board for the win light (against Tony Stewart).
“Unfortunately, we had an oil leak in the semis and had to shut our
car off before pulling into the beams,” said the 17-time pro tour
winner. “We are still diagnosing the leak, but we will have an answer
before we head into Pomona. We’re staying focused on all the positives
that came out of this weekend and plan to carry that into the
Winternationals next weekend.”