Funny Car points leader Austin Prock powered to his fourth win of the season for John Force Racing on Sunday at Pacific Raceways, defeating first-time finalist Paul Lee in the final round of the 35th annual NHRA Northwest Nationals.
Steve Torrence (Top Fuel), Jeg Coughlin Jr. (Pro Stock) and Chase Van Sant (Pro Stock Motorcycle) also won at the 11th of 20 races during the 2024 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series season.
In the Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series, Maddi Gordon became the 100th different female winner in NHRA history, picking up her first career national event victory in Top Alcohol Funny Car. Gordon is in her rookie season in the Top Alcohol Funny Car ranks.
“This is amazing. It doesn’t get any better than this,” Gordon said. “This is a dream. I’m a brand new driver and this is amazing. I couldn’t be more thankful and it just feels great.”
Prock went 3.875s at 334.57mph in his Cornwell Tools Chevrolet Camaro SS in the Funny Car finals to get past Lee and pick up his eighth career win as part of another incredible weekend. The pass in the finals was his fourth consecutive run in the 3.80s on Sunday, as Prock, who was also the No. 1 qualifier, defeated Cruz Pedregon and J.R. Todd earlier in the day.
The first-year Funny Car standout became just the fourth driver in NHRA history to win in both Funny Car and Top Fuel in Seattle, following up his 2019 Top Fuel win at the facility, which was his first career victory.
“This whole Cornwell Tools team is just doing such a great job and given me an opportunity to go out and compete for wins every weekend, and we’ve been going a lot of rounds lately. I just hope we can keep it up throughout the rest of the year,” Prock said.
“I didn’t drive all that hot this weekend. I was consistent but consistently slow on the starting line, so they did an outstanding job and they really carried the team. They’ve been doing a great job of that this year and it sure has been fun.”
In advancing to his first career final round, Lee got past Jeff Diehl, defending world champion Matt Hagan and Blake Alexander.
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