CHEVROLET IN NHRA
2024 PEP BOYS NHRA NATIONALS
MAPLE GROVE RACEWAY
READING, PENNSYLVANIA
TEAM CHEVY RACE ADVANCE | NOTES & STATS
SEPT. 13-15, 2024
CHEVROLET AND JOHN FORCE RACING KICK OFF THE COUNTDOWN READY TO MARCH TOWARD TITLES IN BOTH FUNNY CAR AND TOP FUEL
Notes:
- Team Chevy kicks off the Countdown to the Championship with John Force Racing this weekend at Maple Grove Raceway Sept. 13-15, for the Pep Boys NHRA Nationals in Reading, Penn.
- Austin Prock, driver of the Cornwell Tools Chevrolet Camaro SS Funny Car, currently leads the championship points standing after a stellar season so far with five wins to date in 2024, including the U.S. Nationals. Additionally, he’s captured 10 No. 1 qualifiers this year, giving him a career total of nine victories and 13 No. 1 qualifiers.
- Jack Beckman, driver of the PEAK Antifreeze and Coolant Chevrolet Camaro SS Funny Car and racing on behalf of sidelined team owner and driver John Force, joins Prock in fighting for a Funny Car World Championship and currently sits sixth, 76 points back from Prock in first.
- Securing her spot in the Countdown to the Championship while competing at Indianapolis, Brittany Force, driver of the Monster Energy Chevrolet Top Fuel dragster, is looking to Reading coming off of a strong effort at U.S. Nationals that saw her capture her second No. 1 qualifier of 2024 and 48th of her career. She currently sits ninth in the championship standings 93 points behind first.
- Additionally competing at Reading this weekend, Dallas Glenn leads Greg Anderson in the Pro Stock championship standings, 25 points separating the two.
- Competing this weekend in addition to Pro Stock, the Chevrolet COPO Camaro drivers of the FlexJet Factory Stock Showdown also race this weekend at Maple Grove Raceway. For FlexJet Factory Stock Showdown, Reading is the penultimate event of their 2024 season, as they inch closer to closing out their year and crowning a champion. Chevrolet COPO Camaros sits in first and third respectively. David Janac leads over second by 22 points, with Stephen Bell behind Janac in third with 48 points between the two.
Quotes:
AUSTIN PROCK, DRIVER OF THE CORNWELL TOOLS CHEVROLET CAMARO SS FUNNY CAR:
“(I’m) excited to get back to the track. We’ve been hard at it in the race shop preparing for the Countdown to the Championship. It’s been a great year so far, and we are looking to keep it up for this 6-race dash. Our Chevrolet Camaro has been hot all year long and definitely feels good rolling into the playoffs off a win. Our attention is ahead, one moment at a time.”
JACK BECKMAN, DRIVER OF THE PEAK ANTIFREEZE AND COOLANT CHEVROLET CAMARO SS FUNNY CAR:
“Now that I’ve ‘knocked the rust off’ with a quarter-final and then a semi-final finish at my first two races, it’s time for the Countdown to the Championship! With back-to-back-to-back events, I look forward to getting even more comfortable and climbing further up in the standings in our PEAK Chevy. We now are less than four rounds out of first place, with a car and a team that are capable of winning EVERY race. I can’t wait to get my first win for John [Force] soon!”
BRITTANY FORCE, DRIVER OF THE MONSTER ENERGY CHEVROLET TOP FUEL DRAGSTER:
“I’m thrilled to be heading into the first race of The Countdown in Reading this weekend. We enter in the number nine position and our competition is the toughest I’ve experience in my career. I’m proud of our Monster Energy team’s fight to clinch our position in Indy. We’ve made major progress throughout our season and one of our best races of the year was this past weekend at the US Nationals. The great thing about The Countdown is everyone’s points reset; so starting at Maple Grove every driver has an opportunity at chasing the championship. I feel confident coming into a racetrack where we’ve previously won and set the national ET record (3.623 seconds), but we have no room for mistakes. The plan is to continue qualifying in the top spot and go rounds on race day.”
How to Watch:
The Pep Boys NHRA Nationals from Maple Grove Raceway airs first with qualifying on Friday, Sept. 14 at 7 p.m. ET on FOX Sports 1 (FS1). Sunday sees Saturday’s qualifying air at 12:30 p.m. ET on FS1, with Finals following at 2 p.m. ET on FOX. Coverage streams live throughout the weekend on NHRA.tv, and is available via AppleTV, Android TV, and Roku devices.
TEAM CHEVY BY THE NUMBERS:
1,463: Round wins for John Force (1st all-time). (Three round wins have been captured by Jack Beckman in Brainerd and Indianapolis while racing on behalf of Force who is currently recovering from an on-track incident).
626: Round wins for Robert Hight; 13th all-time. Cruz Pedregon (Funny Car), sits 12th, with 632.
167: Number of career No. 1 qualifiers for John Force (1st all-time).
166: Number of Chevrolet Racing Funny Car wins since 1967.
84: Number of career No. 1 qualifiers for Robert Hight (6th all-time). Tony Schumacher (Top Fuel) is fifth with 88.
86: Number of Chevrolet Racing Funny Car wins with the Camaro SS body.
48: Number of career No. 1 qualifiers for Brittany Force.
28: Number of NHRA championships Chevrolet holds as a manufacturer since entering the first in 1966. This is the seventh-consecutive award and ninth in 11 seasons. No other manufacturer has won it more than Chevrolet.
26: Wins by John Force in a Chevrolet-bodied Funny Car.
20: Chevrolet career Top Fuel wins in NHRA.
16: Number of Chevrolet career wins by Brittany Force.
7: Number of Funny Car driver championships.
2: Number of Top Fuel driver championships.
Austin Prock, driver of the Cornwell Tools Chevrolet Camaro SS Funny Car – Countdown to the Championship Media Availability Transcript:
(Moderator) Brian Lohnes of NHRA: What does a good U.S. Nationals mean for a team entering the countdown as the number one seed?
Austin Prock: Well, I think any race weekend you go into coming off of a win gives you a little bit more, you know, a little bit of pep into your step. But yeah, winning the U.S. Nationals, that was pretty special for me and my family. And we’re excited for the countdown. Nothing matters that we’ve done to, you know, this point. Everything restarts. And we’ve got to go into these next six races and just do the same job we’ve been doing. Our lead got tightened up quite a bit. And we just got to go and execute and really perform better than we have all year long.
Moderator Lohnes: How personal was your performance on race day at Indy for you, like, to just put that thing behind you? I know good race car drivers don’t linger on things that happened in the past, but how important was it for you to really kind of drive it down to a pro on Monday at Indy?
Austin Prock: It was exactly what I wanted to do. You know, I wanted to go out there and prove to myself that, I can take a hit and bounce right back up from it.
I said during the week of the U.S. Nationals after we won, that was the best driving performance I’ve probably had in my career. You know, from doing the burnout perfectly straight, to staging, to leaving the starting line, to keeping the thing in the groove run for run; I was on the money. That felt really good. And, you know, that’s kind of the performance I expect out of myself, and that’s what I want to have these next six races. That’s what it’s going to take to win this championship.
Phil Burgess, National Dragster: So, Austin, you’ve been in the countdown before, obviously in Top Fuel, first year in Funny Car, and obviously your first year leading the points. Can you talk about the attitude you have when you come in the countdown and you’re not the top seed and you’ve got ground to make up versus being in the front and not necessarily protecting the lead, but maybe racing differently?
Austin Prock: Well, I don’t think we’ll race any different. You know, you’ve got to block that out. But I was actually talking to Chris Cunningham [former crew chief and current co-crew chief for Jack Beckman] this afternoon at the shop, and I was like, “ ..I’ve always said this countdown format, it’s the same for everyone. But I always come in at the lower end of the stick, you know, and I always believed that it was the same for everyone. Well, coming in this year, when you have a 348 point lead or whatever it was, and, you know, you get it taken away all the way down to essentially less than one round because you can’t even count 40 points as two rounds anymore because there’s points and a half in Pomona. I was like, it’s really not the same for everyone. I feel like it’s the same for everyone if you’re like fifth or sixth down, you know, then it kind of like tightens everything back up.
Joe Costello, WFO Radio: We are looking at one of the best battles that maybe we will ever see in Funny Car, or maybe not, if you’re able to dominate the playoffs the way you were the regular season. So, I’d like to hear you talk a little bit about the competition, if you would.
Austin Prock: Yeah, I think the biggest threat is my teammate, Jack Beckman in that PEAK race car, that PEAK Chevrolet, that thing, that thing’s wicked. On Sunday [in Indianapolis], we were going blow for blow for low E.T. each round and they nicked us a few times. And I don’t know if you guys saw on Sunday, Jack was mowing the tree down. I think he was 62 and 64 or 67 first and second round.
That car is going to be tough, you know, so I hope it’s a battle to the finish between the two of us. That would be really special for John Force Racing and great for John Force and great for Jack Beckman and that whole team—Danny Hood and Chris Cunningham.
They worked really hard on that race car all year and, you know, kind of got thrown for a loop and had to sit out a few races. And when they came back, they were swinging for the fence and the thing was sticking. So that’s definitely exciting to see from a team standpoint.
But there’s a lot of good race cars out there. I mean, Bob Tasca, he can rip and he can drive really well, too. So you’ve got him. You can never count out (Ron) Capps. You can never count out Hagan. You know, Hagan, I feel like a lot of people have been sleeping on him a little bit this year and you can’t count him out. I mean, he’s a four-time champion.
He’s an excellent driver and Dickie is, he’s one bad dude. So I think everybody’s in for a treat, this countdown to the championship. The conditions are going to, you know, cool off and the air is going to come to everyone and it just promotes better racing. You know, when we get in these conditions where the racetrack’s really good and the air is really good, the field just really tightens up. So it’s going to be hard to say who’s going to be your toughest opponent, but I know these two Chevrolet Camaro SS’s at John Force Racing are going to be stout.
About Chevrolet
Founded in 1911 in Detroit, Chevrolet is now one of the world’s largest car brands. Chevrolet models include electric and fuel-efficient vehicles that feature engaging performance, design that makes the heart beat, passive and active safety features and easy-to-use technology, all at a value. More information on Chevrolet models can be found at www.chevrolet.com.
