Photography: John Force Racing / Gary Nastase / Auto Imagery
MADISON, Ill. (Sept. 27, 2025) – Warm temperatures during both of Saturday’s qualifying runs at World Wide Technology Raceway prevented any movement in the qualifying order for John Force Racing’s trio of drivers, meaning Austin Prock earned the top qualifying spot in Funny Car, Brittany Force qualified fifth in Top Fuel and Jack Beckman qualified ninth in Funny Car for Sunday’s NHRA Mission Foods Midwest Nationals.
Prock’s Cornwell Tools Chevrolet SS Funny Car and Force’s HendrickCars.com Top Fuel Dragster lost traction and smoked the tires in their four collective runs on Saturday, but they maintained their positions. Prock earned his 20th Funny Car No. 1 Qualifier, and 23rd overall, with Friday’s Q2 run of 3.845 seconds at 337.16 mph. Force’s one full pass in qualifying came in Friday’s first session and produced a run of 3.709 seconds at a track record 340.47 mph. It was the first 340-mph run at World Wide Technology Raceway and Force’s 11 such pass in 2025.
Beckman’s first run Saturday was a lap of 3.942 seconds at 327.03 and one of the few full passes of the session. He shut off early in the fourth and final session.
Force will face No. 12 qualifier Justin Ashley (3.754 seconds) in Sunday’s first round of eliminations. Currently sixth in the point standings, Force has the top three drivers in the point standings (Doug Kalitta, Shawn Langdon, and Ashley) on her side of the ladder.
Prock will face No. 16 qualifier Bobby Bode III (4.531 seconds) in Sunday’s first round of Funny Car eliminations while Beckman will face No. 8 qualifier Spencer Hyde (3.903 seconds). If both are successful, the John Force Racing teammates will square off in Round 2.
Final eliminations are scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 28, at 11 a.m. C.T.
Quotes from Brittany Force, HendrickCars.com Tools Top Fuel Dragster:
“As my crew chief David Grubnic always says, we’d rather take the tough guy out. We’d rather face him in the first round so we can move forward. We can’t rely on anybody else to take him out. So, tomorrow’s first round against Justin Ashley is a tough matchup. We qualified fifth and have lane choice, but he whipped us last weekend. Going into race day tomorrow, it’s a new day. We need to turn this HendrickCars.com car around and get some consistent runs down the racetrack to turn some win lights on.”
Quotes from Austin Prock, Cornwell Tools Chevrolet SS Funny Car:
“We had a great day yesterday. Second quick in the first session and low ET of the weekend in the second session that earned us the No. 1 Qualifier. The Cornwell Tools Chevrolet was making competitive runs like we wanted to and just came loose in two different spots. So, we’ll learn from it. You know, sometimes when this thing smokes the tires in qualifying it almost gives me a settling feeling because we found the edge, and we know what not to do tomorrow when it counts, So, I’m really looking forward to tomorrow. I haven’t seen the ladder yet but, hopefully, we can extend our point lead on the category.
Quotes from Jack Beckman, PEAK Antifreeze and Coolant Chevrolet SS Funny Car:
“If NHRA. put me in charge tonight, gave me an empty ladder and said, ‘You choose all the parings for tomorrow,’ this wouldn’t have been the way I laid it out. We got a tough matchup first round with Spencer Hyde. We don’t have lane choice. In fact, since we’re eighth and ninth, we won’t even get to choose which sequence we run in. It’s whatever pair nobody else picked, which will either be first or last, probably last. I have no control over any of that. And if we get past him, we’ll have Austin Prock. The silver lining of that is if we can get past Spencer, we have our destiny in our hands. You’d really like to affect the outcome of the points deal, holding the steering wheel, not biting your fingernails. We’ve got a great race car. In Q3, our first hot track run this weekend, we were the quickest car out there. And Q4, we put a cylinder out at 300 feet. That’s a relatively easy fix for the guys, and we made it far enough down track to get good, hot track data.
“I’m optimistic going into tomorrow, but we’re at that stage in our season that every round we go up there on race day is really our season for the championship. Nobody’s racing for second. We’re not. Austin and Company have kind of made a statement that ‘the rest of you all running for second.’ We’ve got a great shot at a world championship. But to do that, we’ve pretty much got to be holding the trophy at the end of the day tomorrow. And it’s going to be a tough, tall wall to get over, and I also like our chances. It is awesome to show up for work Sunday morning knowing, and having the confidence, that you have as good a shot as anybody in Nitro Funny Car to behold the trophy at the end of the day.”
TV Schedule (all times Eastern)
Television coverage includes qualifying action on FS1 at 2 p.m. ET on Sunday, Sept. 28 and then eliminations coverage starting at 3 p.m. ET.
###
Continue reading...
MADISON, Ill. (Sept. 27, 2025) – Warm temperatures during both of Saturday’s qualifying runs at World Wide Technology Raceway prevented any movement in the qualifying order for John Force Racing’s trio of drivers, meaning Austin Prock earned the top qualifying spot in Funny Car, Brittany Force qualified fifth in Top Fuel and Jack Beckman qualified ninth in Funny Car for Sunday’s NHRA Mission Foods Midwest Nationals.
Prock’s Cornwell Tools Chevrolet SS Funny Car and Force’s HendrickCars.com Top Fuel Dragster lost traction and smoked the tires in their four collective runs on Saturday, but they maintained their positions. Prock earned his 20th Funny Car No. 1 Qualifier, and 23rd overall, with Friday’s Q2 run of 3.845 seconds at 337.16 mph. Force’s one full pass in qualifying came in Friday’s first session and produced a run of 3.709 seconds at a track record 340.47 mph. It was the first 340-mph run at World Wide Technology Raceway and Force’s 11 such pass in 2025.
Beckman’s first run Saturday was a lap of 3.942 seconds at 327.03 and one of the few full passes of the session. He shut off early in the fourth and final session.
Force will face No. 12 qualifier Justin Ashley (3.754 seconds) in Sunday’s first round of eliminations. Currently sixth in the point standings, Force has the top three drivers in the point standings (Doug Kalitta, Shawn Langdon, and Ashley) on her side of the ladder.
Prock will face No. 16 qualifier Bobby Bode III (4.531 seconds) in Sunday’s first round of Funny Car eliminations while Beckman will face No. 8 qualifier Spencer Hyde (3.903 seconds). If both are successful, the John Force Racing teammates will square off in Round 2.
Final eliminations are scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 28, at 11 a.m. C.T.
Quotes from Brittany Force, HendrickCars.com Tools Top Fuel Dragster:
“As my crew chief David Grubnic always says, we’d rather take the tough guy out. We’d rather face him in the first round so we can move forward. We can’t rely on anybody else to take him out. So, tomorrow’s first round against Justin Ashley is a tough matchup. We qualified fifth and have lane choice, but he whipped us last weekend. Going into race day tomorrow, it’s a new day. We need to turn this HendrickCars.com car around and get some consistent runs down the racetrack to turn some win lights on.”
Quotes from Austin Prock, Cornwell Tools Chevrolet SS Funny Car:
“We had a great day yesterday. Second quick in the first session and low ET of the weekend in the second session that earned us the No. 1 Qualifier. The Cornwell Tools Chevrolet was making competitive runs like we wanted to and just came loose in two different spots. So, we’ll learn from it. You know, sometimes when this thing smokes the tires in qualifying it almost gives me a settling feeling because we found the edge, and we know what not to do tomorrow when it counts, So, I’m really looking forward to tomorrow. I haven’t seen the ladder yet but, hopefully, we can extend our point lead on the category.
Quotes from Jack Beckman, PEAK Antifreeze and Coolant Chevrolet SS Funny Car:
“If NHRA. put me in charge tonight, gave me an empty ladder and said, ‘You choose all the parings for tomorrow,’ this wouldn’t have been the way I laid it out. We got a tough matchup first round with Spencer Hyde. We don’t have lane choice. In fact, since we’re eighth and ninth, we won’t even get to choose which sequence we run in. It’s whatever pair nobody else picked, which will either be first or last, probably last. I have no control over any of that. And if we get past him, we’ll have Austin Prock. The silver lining of that is if we can get past Spencer, we have our destiny in our hands. You’d really like to affect the outcome of the points deal, holding the steering wheel, not biting your fingernails. We’ve got a great race car. In Q3, our first hot track run this weekend, we were the quickest car out there. And Q4, we put a cylinder out at 300 feet. That’s a relatively easy fix for the guys, and we made it far enough down track to get good, hot track data.
“I’m optimistic going into tomorrow, but we’re at that stage in our season that every round we go up there on race day is really our season for the championship. Nobody’s racing for second. We’re not. Austin and Company have kind of made a statement that ‘the rest of you all running for second.’ We’ve got a great shot at a world championship. But to do that, we’ve pretty much got to be holding the trophy at the end of the day tomorrow. And it’s going to be a tough, tall wall to get over, and I also like our chances. It is awesome to show up for work Sunday morning knowing, and having the confidence, that you have as good a shot as anybody in Nitro Funny Car to behold the trophy at the end of the day.”
TV Schedule (all times Eastern)
Television coverage includes qualifying action on FS1 at 2 p.m. ET on Sunday, Sept. 28 and then eliminations coverage starting at 3 p.m. ET.
###
Continue reading...
