PEAK Motorsports Update- June 30, 2025

NHRA: Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals- Norwalk, OH

Monday, June 30, 2025: 

A gritty Austin Prock used his starting line skills to narrowly defeat three-time World Champion Ron Capps in the semifinals, then relied on his dad’s tuning expertise to secure a final round victory over four-time World Champ Matt Hagan that sent the Cornwell Tools Chevrolet SS back to the winners’ circle Sunday following the 18th NHRA Norwalk Nationals at Summit Motorsport Park.

It was the second win in as many weeks for the 29-year-old point leader and a crew led by his dad Jimmy, his brother Thomas, and Nate Hildahl, and it was an especially rewarding one since it came on the track Cornwell Tools calls home.

It was the fourth win of the year for the reigning series champion and the 12th since he first slid into the seat of the Cornwell Chevy to start the 2024 season. But it was no cakewalk. Racing on a 130-degree track, Prock did not have access to the power that propelled the black-and-blue Chevy to an NHRA national record speed of 341.68 miles per hour last November and to a jaw-dropping, best in history 3.791 during testing last February.

At SMP, the best the fourth-generation racer could manage was 3.900 at 331.28 mph and that was in the hero qualifying session on Friday night, the session that almost always offers up the best conditions of the weekend. Sunday, he had to make do with times of 3.980, 4.025, 4.091 and 4.064.

The 4.091 would have been a loser to Capps’ quicker 4.089 if not for Prock’s .040 of a second starting line advantage (0.055 to 0.095). That edge got him to the finish 0.038 of a second ahead of the Toyota driver. 

In the final, the crew gave the 2019 NHRA Rookie-Of-The-Year just enough to allow him to keep his career record perfect against Hagan, whom he has beaten seven times, twice in final rounds. Prock increased his lead over John Force Racing teammate Jack Beckman to 127 points with just four races remaining before the NHRA adjusts the points in advance of the Countdown to the Championship.

Beckman, who celebrated his 59th birthday Saturday, was one of Hagan’s victims on Sunday in a dead-heat race in which one could not have determined the winner with the naked eye. Hagan’s 0.071 reaction time gave him a 0.002 of a second cushion and he needed every bit of it at the finish, winning by 0.0016 of a second with a 4.088 to Beckman’s 4.087 in the PEAK Antifreeze and Coolant Chevy SS.

Like Beckman, two-time Top Fuel World Champ Brittany Force was stopped in round two. Force took out veteran Lex Joon in round one before running afoul of Shawn Langdon, whose 3.900 was just good enough to cover her 3.953 in the Chevrolet Accessories dragster.

The next event on the NHRA Mission Food Series is the Northwest Nationals in Seattle, July 19-21st.