Photo Credit: Gary Nastase / Auto imagery

MADISON, Ill. (Sept. 29, 2024) – In just his fifth start in relief of drag racing icon John Force, “Fast Jack” Beckman drove the 16-time champion’s PEAK Antifreeze and Coolant Chevrolet Camaro SS past the Toyota of three-time World Champion Ron Capps Sunday to win the 28th NHRA Midwest Nationals at World Wide Technology Raceway.

Trying to secure a 17th championship for Force, who remains in rehab for the Traumatic Brain Injury he suffered in a June 23 crash in Richmond, Va., Beckman halted teammate Austin Prock’s three-race winning streak in the semifinals and then, relegated to the less-favored right lane, got around Capps in the final round with a time of 3.856 at a slowing 315.86 miles per hour.

Capps trailed at 3.882, but was closing the gap at an accelerated rate at the finish line, crossing it at a speed of 329.42 mph. The final margin was .012 of a second. It wasn’t exactly a trouble-free event for the PEAK team, however.

“We cracked the body in the first round and the guys deemed it better to bring a backup body out than to try and patch that one and have to fix it again in the shop,” Beckman said. “You don’t even miss a beat on that. When you have all the confidence in your crew that whatever they have to do, whatever spare parts have to go on that car, we can drag that thing right back up there and it’s going to go right down the racetrack just like it did.”

It was the first Mission Foods tour victory for Beckman since Oct. 18, 2020, when he beat Matt Hagan to win the Texas Fall Nationals at Dallas. He lost his ride at Don Schumacher Racing shortly thereafter and returned to his day job as an elevator repairman, never expecting the call that put him in the seat from which Force won twice earlier in the season for crew chiefs Dan Hood and Chris Cunningham.
“We lost lane choice for the semifinals (against Prock),” Beckman said. “That’s a tough one because the right lane was a bit finicky for a lot of cars this weekend. (But) we went right down there and that gave me a lot more confidence going into the final round and we got it done.

“We actually made a monster lap in the final. That was fantastic to see our guys turn the screws up and get more aggressive with it because that comes from confidence,” he said. “You know, when you’re racing from a point of defensiveness, you back the car off. When you have a lot of confidence in the parts and equipment and tune-up, you just lean on it. We leaned on it.”

It was the 34th Funny Car victory of Beckman’s career and his third at WWTR, where he prevailed in 2012 and 2016 while driving for DSR as teammate to the man he beat in Sunday’s final.

With Sunday’s win, Beckman improved his record since taking over the controls of the blue Chevy to 12-4. He’s gone to the semifinals or beyond in four straight races and, thanks to Prock’s second round victory over Bob Tasca III, he moved into second place in the driver standings at the midpoint of the playoffs. When qualifying begins Oct. 11 for the 39th Texas Fall Nationals in Dallas, the 2012 Funny Car World Champion will trail his young battery mate, winner of seven races this year, by 105 points.

A former NHRA Super Comp Champion (2003), Beckman is the tenth different driver to win an NHRA tour event in a JFR Funny Car and the eleventh to reach the final round. He joins Force, Tony Pedregon, Gary Densham, Eric Medlen, Robert Hight, Ashley Force Hood, Mike Neff, Courtney Force and Prock as Funny Car event winners.

Prock, who qualified the AAA Chevy No. 1 for the 12th time this season, moving to within one of Force’s single season Funny Car record set in 1996, dropped jaws with a best-of-the-weekend 3.814 in round one. However, he lost his edge in a round two engine explosion that occurred as he crossed the finish line after beating Tasca.

That necessitated a lot of parts swapping between rounds along with the installation of a back-up carbon fiber body, the sum of which resulted in a loss of traction in the all-Camaro semifinal.
“Well, obviously, we had to change everything,” Prock said of the fireball-inducing incident, “and when I got on it, it was just way over-revved (and lost traction). I tried coming off (the throttle), you know, flutter the pedal, but it just wasn’t happening.”

It was same story, different verse for two-time World Champion Brittany Force who qualified a solid third at 3.722 in her Monster Energy Chevy dragster, beat Josh Hart in the first round but then faltered against Shawn Reed.

Nevertheless, the 16-time tour winner did move up a spot in the driver standings and remained optimistic that she and her David Grubnic-and-John Collins-led team can end a lengthy victory drought in the last three races, all of them events the team has won previously.

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