Jack Beckman and the PEAK SQUAD took a difficult path to victory in last year\u2019s Gerber Collision & Glass Route 66 NHRA Nationals presented by PEAK so they\u2019re working toward a much smoother route to winner\u2019s circle in this year\u2019s May 15-17 event at Route 66 Raceway in Joliet, Ill.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe big races to win are typically your hometown race, milestone events, the U.S. Nationals and, and the Pomona races. They\u2019re the legendary races,\u201d Beckman said. \u201cBut I also put right up there winning your sponsor\u2019s event because their name goes on the trophy at the end of the day, too. When you win at your sponsor\u2019s event, and your sponsor is a company like PEAK and Old World Industries, where all the employees understand the culture of the product that they\u2019re selling, it\u2019s something special. We had so many PEAK employees show up to the race last year. It wasn\u2019t mandatory. They wanted to be there and they were there at the end of the day with the team in winner\u2019s circle holding that trophy up. It\u2019s really hard to think of many better weekends that I\u2019ve had driving a race car than to do it with that PEAK SQUAD surrounding us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The PEAK Chevrolet SS was hit with multiple mechanical gremlins in qualifying and traction issues in eliminations during last year\u2019s event. But it all came together in the final round against then-teammate and reigning Funny Car Champion Austin Prock.<\/p>\n
Beckman won on a holeshot, cutting a .049 light to Prock\u2019s .063, and taking the win a run of 3.935 seconds at 325.77 mph to his teammate\u2019s quicker run of 3.933 seconds at 329.02 mph. It was Beckman\u2019s 37th\u00a0NHRA Funny Car career victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really looked like it was a scripted weekend for the PEAK SQUAD,\u201d said Beckman. \u201cWe qualified number one, we win the race. It\u2019s an absolute storybook description but it misses a lot of the details. It was an unusual event in that the quickest qualifying runs didn\u2019t come on Friday, they came on Saturday. We were sitting mid-pack when we came up for the first Saturday run and we go right to the top with a 3.85. We thought it might even be a little bit quicker for the last qualifying run. We go up to the line and our car won\u2019t start. The crew did a number of quick checks but couldn\u2019t find the issue. We eventually found a broken air fitting that disarmed the ignition system. But the silver lining there is it happening qualifying, not on race day.<\/p>\n
\u201cRace day comes and the car won\u2019t start in the morning warmup,\u201d Beckman added.\u201d It\u2019s a different issue in the ignition system. We replace the box and now we\u2019ve dodged a couple of bullets. We win 1st round and then smoke the tires in the second round but were still able to win. The car smoked the tires again in the semis but I pedaled it and we got the win. Then we close it with a holeshot win over our teammate, Austin Prock, the defending Funny Car champion and that\u2019s as good as it gets. As a driver, it feels unbelievable to give back to a team that\u2019s given you a fast car all year long because it\u2019s typically the car that wins the race. We bookended qualifying number one and that amazing final round victory with a lot of nail biting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beckman currently sits eighth in points, just 30 points behind Spencer Hyde.<\/p>\n
Two rounds of qualifying will be contested at 1:30 and 4:00 p.m. CT on Friday, May 15, and two more rounds of qualifying on Saturday, May 16 at 12:00 and 2:30 p.m. CT. Eliminations will begin at 11:00 a.m. CT on Sunday, May 17.<\/p>\n
The post Jack Beckman and the Peak Squad Hope to Reach the Peak Again at NHRA Route 66 Nationals<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jack Beckman and the PEAK SQUAD took a difficult path to victory in last year\u2019s Gerber Collision & Glass Route 66 NHRA Nationals presented by PEAK so they\u2019re working toward a much smoother route to winner\u2019s circle in this year\u2019s May 15-17 event at Route 66 Raceway in Joliet, Ill. \u201cThe big races to win […]<\/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-103596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103596","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=103596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103596\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}