The slow start to the 2026 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series season for Jack Beckman took a sharp turn in the right direction last Sunday with his runner-up finish in the NHRA 4-Wide Nationals and it\u2019s the spark from that strong showing that the PEAK SQUAD will carry to South Georgia Motorsports Park on May 1-3 for the renewal of the NHRA Southern Nationals.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s only one first but, in many cases, we\u2019ve had a whole bunch of \u2018last\u2019 races,\u201d said Beckman. \u201cBut you know for a fact if you win the inaugural, that never changes. I won the inaugural race at zMAX Raceway in 2008. It\u2019s an awesome trophy that can never be taken away. There\u2019s only one first.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 37-time NHRA Funny Car winner finished third in his second-round quad at zMAX Dragway near Charlotte, N.C. Dave Richards crossed the finish line second but was disqualified for his car making contact with the retaining wall before the finish line. That moved Beckman into the final round, where he had a 0.058 reaction time and ran 3.917 seconds at 329.50 mph to Ron Capps\u2019 winning run of 3.905 seconds at 334.90 mph (0.054 reaction time).<\/p>\n
The final-round appearance extended to 19 the number of consecutive seasons Beckman has raced in at least one final round in every season he has competed in the Funny Car class beginning in 2006.<\/p>\n
Despite not taking the victory, the performance moved Beckman from 10th to eighth in the Funny Car point standings; 10 points behind Spencer Hyde in seventh place, 22 behind John Force Racing teammate Alexis DeJoria in sixth and 52 behind JFR teammate Jordan Vandergriff in fifth.<\/p>\n
The 2012 NHRA Funny Car World Champion\u2019s runner-up finish last Sunday qualified the PEAK SQUAD to participate in this week\u2019s Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty Challenge. The race-within-qualifying event will take place Saturday, May 2, at 1 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. ET during the third and fourth rounds of Funny Car qualifying.<\/p>\n
In 13 previous NHRA Southern Nationals starts (2007-2019 at Atlanta Dragway in Commerce, Ga.), Beckman earned two wins (2009, 2011) a runner-up finish and No. 1 Qualifier in 2016, and an 18-11 overall round record.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have our tracks specialist, Lanny Miglizzy. When he gets to a track, he\u2019s probably been there 20 times or more so he usually starts off with the notes he had last year,\u201d Beckman said. \u201cBut we don\u2019t have notes on Valdosta so the great thing about that is it\u2019s equal for everybody. We\u2019re going to roll in to South Georgia and it\u2019s gonna be new to all of us. For the first time in NHRA\u2019s 75-year history, we have four national events on tracks that we have not raced NHRA national events on before so it\u2019s going to be really interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n
The NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series qualifying will feature two rounds at 3 and 5:30 p.m. ET on Friday, May 1, with the final two rounds Saturday, May 2, at 12:30 and 3 p.m. Final eliminations are scheduled for 11 p.m. ET on Sunday, May 3.<\/p>\n
Television coverage includes qualifying on FS1 from 9:30-11 p.m. ET on Saturday, May 2, a second qualifying show Sunday, May 3, from 1-2 p.m. ET and eliminations from 7-10 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n
The post Jack Beckman\u2019s Season on the Way Up Heading Into NHRA Southern Nationals<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The slow start to the 2026 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series season for Jack Beckman took a sharp turn in the right direction last Sunday with his runner-up finish in the NHRA 4-Wide Nationals and it\u2019s the spark from that strong showing that the PEAK SQUAD will carry to South Georgia Motorsports Park on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103493\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}