Double Funny Car champion Austin Prock and crew join Ford ranks with Tasca Racing
By John Sturbin, Raceday San Antonio
The NHRA Funny Car rivalry between corporate atagonists John Force Racing and Bob Tasca Racing was amped-up Thursday, when two-time/reigning world champion Austin Prock was introduced as driver of Tasca’s Ford Mustang beginning with the 2026 Mission Foods Drag Racing Series season.
Austin Prock. NHRA photo
Prock and the tuning pairing led by his father, Jimmy, and brother, Thomas, were introduced live on stage by Mark Rushbrook, Ford Racing’s global director, during the 2026 Ford Racing Season Launch Event at Michigan Central Station in Detroit.
Prock’s PPG Nitro Mustang Dark Horse Funny Car will carry the No. 1 designation as reigning world champion heading into NHRA’s landmark 75th season celebration in March. The Prock transition also will see longtime Ford loyalist and team-owner/driver Bob Tasca III sit out the 2026 season in support of the new partnership.
“I’m thrilled to welcome the Prock family under the Tasca Racing umbrella,” Tasca said in a prepared statement. “I’ve had a front-row seat throughout my career watching the success Jimmy Prock has achieved, and he’s only continued to elevate his program with the addition of his sons.
“People will naturally ask how this all came together and the answer is simple _ the long-term vision of the Prock family and the Tasca family aligned perfectly. With the combined resources of Tasca Racing, Ford Racing and the Prock family, we know this partnership will be a force to be reckoned with for many years to come.”
Austin Prock, 21, his championship-winning family crew and Nate Hildahl, stunned big-time drag racing shortly after conclusion of the 2025 season in November when they announced their exit from John Force Racing’s Cornwell Quality Tools Chevrolet Camaro SS program.
“I am honored to join Tasca Racing,” Austin Prock said in prepared remarks. “Our family shares the same passion and work ethic for success in motorsports. Like Tasca, our family’s legacy in the racing industry runs for many decades. We are ready for the challenge of building a championship-level team under the Tasca Racing banner. The work has already begun; 2026 is going to be exciting.”
Prock’s championships in 2024 and 2025 allowed him to join an elite list of NHRA Funny Car drivers to have posted back-to-back world titles. That list features NHRA royalty Don “The Snake” Prudhomme, Raymond Beadle, Frank Hawley, Kenny Bernstein and John “Brute” Force. Austin Prock is the grandson of former NHRA Funny Car driver Tom Prock.
A resident of Pittsboro, Ind., Prock won eight national events and placed second four times as a nitromethane-powered Funny Car rookie in 2024. Prock posted nine wins and three runner-up results last season over 19 events, building a large enough point advantage during the Countdown to the Championship playoffs to withstand November’s weather-induced cancellation of the season-ending In-N-Out Burger NHRA Finals in Pomona, Calif. Prock finished 101 points ahead of four-time world champion Matt Hagan of Tony Stewart Racing.
Ironically, Prock clinched his second title while signing autographs in the pits during the rain-plagued weekend.
Prock won two-of-five Countdown events contested last season, including the 40th annual Texas NHRA FallNationals at International Drag Racing Hall of Famer Billy Meyer’s Texas Motorplex in Ennis. That race capped The Plex’s state-backed, 10-day “Stampede of Speed” initiative.
Prock moved to Funny Car after competing for JFR in Top Fuel, with a career-best point finish of third in 2022. Austin replaced three-time Funny Car world champion Robert Hight _ who exited the “Prock Rocket” Camaro tuned by Jimmy Prock _ due to a medical issue.
Prock has compiled 21 combined NHRA national event victories, including 17 in 24 finals and 22 No. 1 qualifiers over the past two seasons since moving from JFR’s Top Fuel dragster to Funny Car. His career-best elapsed time over NHRA’s 1,000-foot distance in Funny Car is 3.804-seconds at 341.68 mph. Among his accomplishments in a nitro “flopper” are two victories at the prestigious NHRA U.S. Nationals, NHRA’s “Big Go.” Prock also emerged as “King of the 4-Wide events” during 2025, sweeping all three of NHRA’s point-paying races contested under that format.
Prock’s tenure with JFR included John Force’s retirement announcement on Nov. 14 after compiling a record 16 Funny Car world championships. Force, 76, continues to recover from the career-ending injuries he suffered during a first-round crash 17 months ago during the NHRA Viriginia Nationals in Richmond.
“I am very grateful for the opportunities JFR and partners gave myself and our family,” Prock said in a statement published in the December 2025 issue of National Dragster. “We had a lot of great memories and success over the years. It was a difficult decision to leave, but we are excited to continue racing as a family for years to come.”
Prock’s overall record is 168-88 in 109 races that include Top Fuel. Austin is the 20th driver in NHRA history to win in both Top Fuel and Funny Car.
“We are very proud of our accomplishments with the Prock family,” John Force said in the aftermath of the Prock family decision. “I wish them well and I understand that their decision to move on is just part of the business we’re in.
“John Force Racing has been doing what we do for more than 50 years and all the hard work preparing for the 2026 NHRA season continues as planned with four race teams and the Force American Made machine shop. We appreciate the strength and continued backing of all of the great sponsors that support us, so we’re focused on the future that includes announcing additional partnerships.”
As noted, Force will continue to oversee JFR, the 23-time championship-winning organization based in Brownsburg, Ind.
Tasca III, 51, finished 10th in the final standings last season, snapping a six-year streak of top-five results. Tasca exited the cockpit after compiling 18 victories in 34 final-round appearances over 338 starts. His career won/loss round record is 327-314. Tasca owns 20 NHRA national event victories, including 18 during an 18-year career in nitro-powered Fords. He has finished in the top-10 in points the last seven seasons, including two third-place results.
Tasca III serves as Vice President of Tasca Automotive Group in Cranston, R.I. He is the grandson of Ford loyalist Bob Tasca Sr., whose work with company icons Henry Ford II (aka The Deuce) and Carroll Shelby were central to the “Ford Total Performance” initiative of the early 1960s and into the 1970s across various forms of racing world-wide.
Among the Tasca family’s contributions to American motorsport lore is the phrase “Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday.” The Tasca Ford dealership in Cranston emerged as the birthplace of historic Blue Oval Muscle Cars including the famed 427 CID Fairlane Thunderbolt, Ford Cobra Jet, Tasca Street Boss and Mystery race cars.
NHRA’s 2026 schedule will begin with the Gatornationals in Gainesville, Fla., March 5-8, officially jump-starting the California-based sanctioning body’s 75th anniversary season.
