Essentials Inside The Story
- Two-time defending NHRA Funny Car champion Austin Prock had a terrible debut with his new team, Tasca Racing, failing to qualify for the season-opening Gatornationals
- It reportedly is the first time in Prock's Funny Car career that he failed to qualify for race day eliminations
- Having joined Tasca Racing in the off-season after his contract with John Force Racing expired, Prock failed to make even one full run down the drag strip during four qualifying attempts
Virtually everyone who came to Gainesville, Florida, for this weekend’s season-opening NHRA Amalie Oil Gatornationals will be back and looking forward to Sunday’s final rounds of eliminations, with the shocking exception and absence of two-time defending Funny Car champion Auston Prock.
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Failing to complete even one of four qualifying rounds down the 1,000-foot Gainesville Raceway drag strip on both Friday and Saturday, Prock missed the cut to compete in the 16-car field to race in Sunday’s four rounds of eliminations.
It was the first time that Prock had failed to qualify for Sunday eliminations in his 109-race Funny Car and Top Fuel nitro career. Equally shocking is that Prock, uncharacteristically, was the slowest of the 19 drivers that made bids for a shot at the 16-car finals, unable to go any quicker than 4.836 seconds.
“It stinks,” a dejected Prock told NHRA.com. “But I’m not surprised by the way things have been going. Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong, but we’ll be back, and we will win.”
This was Prock’s official debut for Bob Tasca Racing, having spent the last several seasons with John Force Racing, for whom Prock won the 2024 and 2025 NHRA Funny Car championships.
After his contract with Force expired at the end of last season, Prock shocked the NHRA world by pulling up stakes – and taking his father and long-time JFR crew chief Jimmie Prock and Austin’s brother and co-crew chief Thomas Prock – with him for similar roles to the archrival Tasca camp, all signing lucrative multi-year deals.
Team owner and primary driver Bob Tasca has said numerous times during the off-season that Prock was his only choice to replace Tasca behind the wheel of their Ford-powered Mustang Funny Car, as Tasca decided to scale back his competing in all events in 2026 (although he may still do select events this season).
With no point in sticking around for race day, Prock’s hauler—captured on video by NHRA blogger/influencer Mighty Mack – pulled out of Gainesville Raceway late Saturday night and began the nearly 500-mile trip back to the team’s home base in Concord, N.C.
Prock and the Tasca team will try to get back on track at the NHRA’s next race, the FMP NHRA Arizona Nationals, March 20-22, at Firebird Raceway in suburban Phoenix, Arizona.
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