Austin Prock on handling a 13,000 hp Funny Car: ‘It’s always driving you and you’re just along for the ride’

Austin Prock has been an instant success in the NHRA Funny Car ranks, winning world championships his first two seasons with John Force Racing since transitioning from Top Fuel. In the latest edition of RACER Debrief, he explains some of the differences between the two.

"You're harnessing the same amount of horsepower, 13,000 horsepower to the rear wheels. And in a dragster, you have 300 inches of wheelbase. In a Funny Car, you have 125 inches of wheelbase," Prock notes. "You know, you're missing more wheelbase than you have from category to category. So they are rowdy machines. The front end's off the ground a lot. The bumps in the racetrack, you can feel them a lot more. And then on top of it, it's one of the only race cars in the world where you sit on top of the rear end.

"So you're at the back of the pendulum, essentially, so when these cars make moves you think that you're much more out of shape than you actually are. So that was definitely a little bit of a learning curve, getting comfortable sitting that far back in the race car. You're constantly trying to fight this monster; you know, we call them beasts because as much as you want to harness it, you can't. It's always driving you and you're just along for the ride, hanging on.

"You'll look from the outboard camera that FOX is shooting for us in. The race car looks like it's going in a perfectly straight line, but I'm in there knuckle to knuckle, as much wheel input as I can possibly have in the race car to keep it straight. They just don't like to listen, and when you're a little bit crazy, that's what you love.

"I grew up racing open-wheel cars and I got to drive non-wing sprint cars there for a while and that's an angry beast as well. You have about 1000 horsepower and then the race car with you in it weighs about 1,400 lbs. So you can imagine that power-to-weight ratio. The front end's off the ground a lot. You're whipping it into the corner sideways with the front end in the air, driving it with the rear tires. It's a non-wing sprint car on steroids. You know, they act a lot the same and like I said, they don't like to listen. So I love driving the Funny Car. It's so much fun. You just can't recreate it in any other form of motorsport."

Watch the whole interview with Austin Prock and Doug Kalitta below: