Nobody had to urge Austin Prock to observe what makes some auto racers great. The current NHRA Funny Car champion and points leader always had that instinct.

“All I’ve ever wanted to do is be a professional race-car driver. So, all I’ve ever thought about or cared about was learning what the successful people do to stay in business or keep the people entertained. And I think that’s just me wanting to live out my dream and working towards it,” Prock said. “Nobody told me I needed to be a race car driver, and nobody told me how to be a race car driver. It’s just what I’ve become.”

He’s become, by age 30, one of the best ever to compete in the nitro ranks of a sport that’s steeped in history, heroes, and horsepower heroics. By the time the Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park opened the gates for this year’s Cornwell Quality Tools U.S. Nationals, Prock had secured the NHRA’s first regular-season championship in the Funny Car class and its $150,000 prize. That was thanks to six victories in eight final rounds through the first 13 races, including four wins in the five races leading up to the sport’s marquee event.

With his Phoenix triumph last season, he became the 19th and most recent driver in drag racing history to win in both Top Fuel and Funny Car. At 18 overall victories, he already has scored a championship and is poised to capture second straight. It’s especially remarkable, considering Darrell Gwynn and Spencer Massey have 18 trophies but no title, along with Brandon Bernstein (19); Whit Bazemore (20); 22-time winners Mike Dunn, Ed “The Ace” McCulloch, and Tommy Johnson Jr.; Tim Wilkerson (24); Dave Connolly (26); Cory McClenathan (34), and Kurt Johnson, who leads the list of prolific winners without a championship.

So already Austin Prock has carved out a spot in NHRA history – after an exemplary career in USAC/STARS and POWRi midgets and sprint cars. And he has accomplished all that by observing some of motorsports’ best and listening to some guides at every stage of his life.

He wasn’t even a kindergartner when he became aware of Funny Cars and Top Fuel dragsters. “I grew with Don Prudhomme and Tom McEwen. They were a big part of my childhood,” the fourth-generation racing star said. “My dad [his crew chief, Jimmy Prock] and grandpa [Tom Prock]. Obviously, my family has a deep legacy in drag racing, and their success just kind of put me around successful people. When you grow up and your family’s hanging around the elite motorsports people or successful motorsports people, you just kind of get put in the mix. And just being around them kind of created who I am, I would say.”

Besides Prudhomme, who helped him find sponsorship for his first steps into his NHRA career and introduced him at a recent Indianapolis 500 to multi-time IndyCar champion team owner Chip Ganassi, Prock has been exposed to so many other industry leaders. Nobody else has had that exposure to as many influential people at such an early age as he has had. “I’ve definitely been lucky in that aspect,” he said. “You just get to meet other successful racers when you’re around successful racers.”

His first encounter was impressive. He forged a friendship with Tony Stewart. “When I started racing quarter-midgets, I met Tony at the Fort Wayne Rumble, and he kind of took me under his wing and really helped boost my career. As a young kid – I don’t even know if I was 11 years old when I met him – I was just happy to be around him. And we just always kind of kept in touch with each other,” Prock said. “After I met him at Fort Wayne, if he was in town or in the area, I’d try to go over to the shop and see him. And eventually, when I got further on into my racing career and started racing national midgets, he gave me the opportunity to race out of his shop.

“And I would say that’s really when advice and things like that, and what avenue to go, really started coming into play. Tony kind of helped me get to the point in my career where I had eyes on me and surrounded me by meeting different sponsors and different partners that he had,” he said.

One trait that elevates Prock’s game outside the race car is his willingness to give interviews and be truthful, even when results aren’t favorable. “I learned that from Dale Earnhardt Jr.,” Prock said. But he has never met the NASCAR legend. “When he raced, I always enjoyed watching his interviews, because I felt like he spoke to the television and to the crowd better than anyone. And as a race car driver, I always thought that was fascinating how he could get people’s attention like that.” He calls his own version of that a result of “just taking notes and learning from the outside in.”

It was kind of the same situation with Ganassi. Prock said, “I got to sit in his hospitality with him for a little bit. [Prudhomme] just drug me over there and introduced me, just dragged me right into the mix of everything. Nothing came from it.”

Prock had joked last summer at the Bristol, Tenn., race that he’d give IndyCar a go if presented an opportunity, but he was clear about how he would go about it. “If that was ever going to happen, I don’t think I would contact anyone. I think I’d leave that up to John Force, because if I called, nobody’s going to pick up the phone for Austin Prock. They’ll pick up the phone for John Force.”

That’s the man who arguably has had the most profound influence on Prock other than his own father. “He’s definitely given me the most opportunity out of any of ’em. John’s given me the opportunity to race professionally. So, I have a lot of respect for John, and I’ve been learning from John since I was six years old. As soon as I knew what a Funny Car was – it was earlier than six years old – I was a huge fan of John Force. And I watched him and I studied him, and he taught me a lot, even before I started racing for him in 2019. Just studying from the outside in, just the way he takes care of his sponsors, the way he takes care of his race fans, the way he can speak to a crowd. Those are all things that I admired about him and thought that if I wanted to be a professional race-car driver, those are things that you need to learn how to do to be successful.”

The dynamic between Austin Prock and Jimmy Prock is divided between professional and personal, although, honestly, the two blend seamlessly.

“I’m not smart enough to tune the race car, so I have conversations with him, but it’s kind of just, ‘What’s going on? What direction are we heading in?’ And I’ll give my two cents. I’m no dummy. I know enough to be dangerous, but most of our conversations ever since I was born, they all evolve or revolved around motorsports,” Austin Prock said.

“That’s all he’s ever known. He’s been full-time on the road pretty much since he was 12 or 13 years old. So, everything that we do as a family, whether it’s the whole family together, every dinner, it revolves around what’s going on with the race car,” he said. “And some people might think that’s crazy, but I believe that’s why he’s as successful as he is. And some of the reasons why my brother and I are becoming successful is that it’s what’s bred into us. It’s all we know, and it’s all we want to do. So, our conversations get deep but solely around the race car.”

Mom Jill knows a thing or two, as well. “Oh, absolutely. She’s no dummy, either,” he said proudly. “She’s been married to my dad for [a long time], and he hasn’t changed one bit, so yeah, she can chime right in there, as well.”

Perhaps the one person few might think of as an overwhelming influence on Prock was an agriculture tycoon from the Columbia Basin farmlands of Eastern Washington, whose empire stretched across the continent and into Canada, Frank Tiegs. He was the man behind the Great Value-branded frozen fruits and vegetables in Walmart stores and the Flav-R-Pac label in groceries nationwide – and a whole lot more, including drill bits for Home Depot, Lowe’s, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin, plus financial and real estate holdings and a jaw-dropping classic-car collection.

And Tiegs was the benefactor who enabled Austin Prock to break into the NHRA’s professional ranks. At the invitation of Don “The Snake” Prudhomme, he put his money into John Force Racing and the names of his companies on the side of Prock’s Montana Brand/Rocky Mountain Twist Dragster (and on Brittany Force’s Flav-R-Pac Dragster).

Prudhomme and Tiegs were sitting next to each other at the Barrett-Jackson Auction in 2019, and Prudhomme was sharing that this young, aspiring racer could be dynamite if he just could find some funding. And Tiegs, already a huge John Force Racing fan, volunteered to make that happen.

“He knew that I needed funding to go race, and he’s the one who got that all started, really. [They] worked out a deal to get me on track in ’19,” he said of the scramble on the eve of the season-opener that saw JFR thrash to get a dragster ready and transported to Phoenix for some whirlwind testing before a sprint to the Winternationals at Pomona, Calif. – where Prock defeated teammate Brittany Force in the first round three or four days later.

Prock attributed that to “right place, right time” and said, “It all worked out with all those people in the right place at the right time. Frank Tiegs wanted to give me an opportunity to get a shot. And sometimes that’s just how things worked out.

“Frank was very knowledgeable. He was obviously a very smart businessman, and he’s been there, done that. He had a lot of different things go on in his life, whether it was good or bad, being in a wheelchair [from an auto accident] in an instant, being able to power through it, still be successful, and not let anything stop you,” Prock said. “Frank taught me a lot, even from a driving standpoint, just how to clear my mind and how to go up there and perform to the best of my ability, even under pressure. I was really, really grateful to have Frank around and learn from him in those aspects.”

He’s a blessed young man, Austin Prock, with a warehouse of wisdom behind his room full of drag-racing trophies at 18 and counting.