After two near misses, Prock claims sport’s ultimate prize
Once considered one the best fuel tuners who’d never won a world championship, Jimmy Prock is now considered one of the best – period.
After near misses in 1992 and 2007, Prock captured drag racing’s ultimate prize in 2009 when he tuned John Force’s Robert Hight-driven Auto Club Mustang to the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series Funny Car championship, winning three of the season’s final six races that make up NHRA’s Countdown to 1.
“It certainly feels good,” said Prock, who tuned Top Fuel dragsters for 10 seasons before joining Force’s Funny Car team in 2001. “You begin to wonder if you’ll ever win. There are a lot of people who are pretty damn good who have never won. There are no guarantees. You just do your best and hopefully it comes your way.”
Though the season’s first 17 races, it appeared that Prock’s best wasn’t going to be enough. Hight was 12th in points entering the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals, the 18th and final regular-season race, and only the top 10 drivers race for the championship.
“We tried a lot of stuff at the beginning of the year and got a little off base, and when you lose your baseline you don’t get it back in a weekend,” said Prock. “But we made a few decisions that worked out well for us in the end. We went to the same manifold and engine combination that [teammate] Ashley [Force Hood] and John were running, which is similar to what I used to run, and the rest of it I just dialed in. We finally got it rolling, but it was just a long road to get there.”
Hight trailed 10th-place Cruz Pedregon by 38 points and 11th-place Matt Hagan by seven after 17 races, but first-round losses by both in Indianapolis opened the door for Hight, who clinched the 10th and final playoff spot with a semifinal win over Force.
Prock credited his close working relationship with driver Robert Hight (above) and a solid crew on the Auto Club Mustang for their 2009 success.
“We just kept digging,” said Prock. “We were down, but we didn’t quit. With the format the way it is now, you’ve got to be good in the last six races, and we felt that if we got in we could win it. It’s just like any professional sport; anybody can win in the playoffs. Like it or not, that’s how it is.”
After his semifinal victory over Force, who got out of the groove and smoked the tires, accusations were made by Pedregon and his brother Tony about how Force lost the race.
“I only know what I do,” said Prock. “We ran the race and we won. People can say what they want, but I don’t know what he did. All I know is that we got in, and we definitely had the best car in the playoffs.”
After his runner-up to Force Hood in Indianapolis, Prock and Hight won the first two playoff races, in Charlotte and Dallas, and, after second-round losses in Memphis and Richmond, all but clinched the title with a win at the season’s penultimate race, in Las Vegas. They made it official by qualifying No. 3 at the season finale in Pomona, where they lost to teammate Mike Neff in the final.
For Prock, the championship ended an 18-year title drought that included near misses in 1992 and 2007. In 1992, he finished second by a mere nine points with Top Fuel driver Cory McClenathan. In 2007, he and Hight lost the championship by 19 points.
Prock missed races in both of those seasons. With McClenathan, an independent racer operating on a limited budget, he missed the race in Montreal. With Hight, he and the other Force teams skipped the race in Houston after the death of teammate Eric Medlen, who was killed in a testing accident after the previous race in Gainesville.
Prock, third from left, got his first real taste of tuning success with Cory McClenathan back in 1992, when they narrowly missed the championship.
“It was tough, but you just have to press on,” said Prock. “In 1992, I didn’t really feel that bad because we did such a great job, coming from nowhere, but 2007 was definitely disappointing. That was the first year of the Countdown and we would have won under the old system, but that’s just the way it is. We lost in the first round in Vegas, and you can’t do that in the Countdown. We needed to win the race and set the record in Pomona, and we won the race but didn’t set the record.”
Prock won two races in three seasons with McClenathan, both in 1992, and won 18 races in seven Top Fuel seasons with Joe Amato, finishing third three times. When Amato retired at the end of the 2000 season, Prock joined Force’s Funny Car triumvirate and was assigned the lead on the team’s third and newest car.
With Gary Densham as his driver, Prock earned his first Funny Car victory with in Memphis in 2001, becoming just the 10th crew chief in NHRA history to win in both Top Fuel and Funny Car. Prock and Densham won eight races during their four-year relationship, culminating in a double victory in Indianapolis in 2004 when Densham won the Skoal Showdown and Mac Tools U.S. Nationals.
Prock and Hight were hot in the Countdown playoffs, winning three of six races.
Hight, who for six seasons worked as a clutch technician on Force’s championship-winning Castrol GTX Funny Car, took over for Densham in 2005 and it took Prock just four races to put him in the winner’s circle. Hight won two races that year and was the runaway winner of the Automobile Club of Southern California Road to the Future Award, which identifies NHRA’s top rookie.
After finishing fifth in their first season together, Prock and Hight won three races in each of the next three seasons, finishing second, second, and fourth.
“Robert’s done a great job,” said Prock. “We work well together. He understands how the car works and he always wants to get better. We can bounce ideas off each other to get ahead or try stuff that’s different. That’s how we’ve been able to do some of the things that we’ve done, like all that stuff we did back in ‘07. We did all that because we didn’t sit on what we had. We had a good car in ‘06, but we changed a lot of stuff and made it better.”
Prock, who tuned Hight to the two quickest quarter-mile runs in Funny Car history in 2007 (4.636 and 4.647) and the quickest 1,000-foot run last year (4.005), and his driver have won 14 races in their five seasons together and qualified No. 1 32 times in 116 races.
“I just like to race,” said Prock. “We went through a couple of pretty tough years with Eric and John’s crash [in Dallas in 2007], and that can change your perspective a little. It’s nice to be able to enjoy racing again. For a while there, even though we did well, I don’t know how much I really enjoyed it. But I feel better about all that now, and I just want to enjoy racing and try to do the best I can. It feels good to win this one, and it would nice to win some more.”
Source: After two near misses, Prock claims sport’s ultimate prize
After near misses in 1992 and 2007, Prock captured drag racing’s ultimate prize in 2009 when he tuned John Force’s Robert Hight-driven Auto Club Mustang to the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series Funny Car championship, winning three of the season’s final six races that make up NHRA’s Countdown to 1.
“It certainly feels good,” said Prock, who tuned Top Fuel dragsters for 10 seasons before joining Force’s Funny Car team in 2001. “You begin to wonder if you’ll ever win. There are a lot of people who are pretty damn good who have never won. There are no guarantees. You just do your best and hopefully it comes your way.”
Though the season’s first 17 races, it appeared that Prock’s best wasn’t going to be enough. Hight was 12th in points entering the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals, the 18th and final regular-season race, and only the top 10 drivers race for the championship.
“We tried a lot of stuff at the beginning of the year and got a little off base, and when you lose your baseline you don’t get it back in a weekend,” said Prock. “But we made a few decisions that worked out well for us in the end. We went to the same manifold and engine combination that [teammate] Ashley [Force Hood] and John were running, which is similar to what I used to run, and the rest of it I just dialed in. We finally got it rolling, but it was just a long road to get there.”
Hight trailed 10th-place Cruz Pedregon by 38 points and 11th-place Matt Hagan by seven after 17 races, but first-round losses by both in Indianapolis opened the door for Hight, who clinched the 10th and final playoff spot with a semifinal win over Force.
Prock credited his close working relationship with driver Robert Hight (above) and a solid crew on the Auto Club Mustang for their 2009 success.
“We just kept digging,” said Prock. “We were down, but we didn’t quit. With the format the way it is now, you’ve got to be good in the last six races, and we felt that if we got in we could win it. It’s just like any professional sport; anybody can win in the playoffs. Like it or not, that’s how it is.”
After his semifinal victory over Force, who got out of the groove and smoked the tires, accusations were made by Pedregon and his brother Tony about how Force lost the race.
“I only know what I do,” said Prock. “We ran the race and we won. People can say what they want, but I don’t know what he did. All I know is that we got in, and we definitely had the best car in the playoffs.”
After his runner-up to Force Hood in Indianapolis, Prock and Hight won the first two playoff races, in Charlotte and Dallas, and, after second-round losses in Memphis and Richmond, all but clinched the title with a win at the season’s penultimate race, in Las Vegas. They made it official by qualifying No. 3 at the season finale in Pomona, where they lost to teammate Mike Neff in the final.
For Prock, the championship ended an 18-year title drought that included near misses in 1992 and 2007. In 1992, he finished second by a mere nine points with Top Fuel driver Cory McClenathan. In 2007, he and Hight lost the championship by 19 points.
Prock missed races in both of those seasons. With McClenathan, an independent racer operating on a limited budget, he missed the race in Montreal. With Hight, he and the other Force teams skipped the race in Houston after the death of teammate Eric Medlen, who was killed in a testing accident after the previous race in Gainesville.
Prock, third from left, got his first real taste of tuning success with Cory McClenathan back in 1992, when they narrowly missed the championship.
“It was tough, but you just have to press on,” said Prock. “In 1992, I didn’t really feel that bad because we did such a great job, coming from nowhere, but 2007 was definitely disappointing. That was the first year of the Countdown and we would have won under the old system, but that’s just the way it is. We lost in the first round in Vegas, and you can’t do that in the Countdown. We needed to win the race and set the record in Pomona, and we won the race but didn’t set the record.”
Prock won two races in three seasons with McClenathan, both in 1992, and won 18 races in seven Top Fuel seasons with Joe Amato, finishing third three times. When Amato retired at the end of the 2000 season, Prock joined Force’s Funny Car triumvirate and was assigned the lead on the team’s third and newest car.
With Gary Densham as his driver, Prock earned his first Funny Car victory with in Memphis in 2001, becoming just the 10th crew chief in NHRA history to win in both Top Fuel and Funny Car. Prock and Densham won eight races during their four-year relationship, culminating in a double victory in Indianapolis in 2004 when Densham won the Skoal Showdown and Mac Tools U.S. Nationals.
Prock and Hight were hot in the Countdown playoffs, winning three of six races.
Hight, who for six seasons worked as a clutch technician on Force’s championship-winning Castrol GTX Funny Car, took over for Densham in 2005 and it took Prock just four races to put him in the winner’s circle. Hight won two races that year and was the runaway winner of the Automobile Club of Southern California Road to the Future Award, which identifies NHRA’s top rookie.
After finishing fifth in their first season together, Prock and Hight won three races in each of the next three seasons, finishing second, second, and fourth.
“Robert’s done a great job,” said Prock. “We work well together. He understands how the car works and he always wants to get better. We can bounce ideas off each other to get ahead or try stuff that’s different. That’s how we’ve been able to do some of the things that we’ve done, like all that stuff we did back in ‘07. We did all that because we didn’t sit on what we had. We had a good car in ‘06, but we changed a lot of stuff and made it better.”
Prock, who tuned Hight to the two quickest quarter-mile runs in Funny Car history in 2007 (4.636 and 4.647) and the quickest 1,000-foot run last year (4.005), and his driver have won 14 races in their five seasons together and qualified No. 1 32 times in 116 races.
“I just like to race,” said Prock. “We went through a couple of pretty tough years with Eric and John’s crash [in Dallas in 2007], and that can change your perspective a little. It’s nice to be able to enjoy racing again. For a while there, even though we did well, I don’t know how much I really enjoyed it. But I feel better about all that now, and I just want to enjoy racing and try to do the best I can. It feels good to win this one, and it would nice to win some more.”
Source: After two near misses, Prock claims sport’s ultimate prize
