![\"Drag](\"https:\/\/dragillustrated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/DI_flat_red-e1711481551475.png\")
<\/p>\nJack Beckman was under the weather with cold symptoms throughout the week at Indianapolis Raceway Park but he and the PEAK Chevrolet SS Funny Car, carrying the 1996 John Force championship flame job tribute paint scheme, were the hottest combo on the track as they swept the weekend by winning Sunday\u2019s PlayNHRA All-Star Call Out and today\u2019s Cornwell Quality Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals.<\/p>\n
Beckman earned his second win of the season, 39th\u00a0of his Funny Car career and third U.S. Nationals title with the final round victory against Matt Hagan. The PEAK Chevy left the starting line ahead by just one thousandth of a second (.055 to .056) and never looked back, running 3.965 seconds at 327.35 mph to Hagan\u2019s 4.030 seconds at 318.84 mph. It was also the second time Beckman has doubled up at Indy, winning both the All-Star event and the U.S. Nationals in 2015.<\/p>\n
John Force Racing\u2019s Alexis DeJoria and Jordan Vandergriff finished their days in the second round and Josh Hart\u2019s day ended in round one.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could truthfully tell you this is the greatest weekend I\u2019ve ever had holding the steering wheel,\u201d Beckman said. \u201cThis was just a phenomenal weekend. This one might be more significant because we did it in John Force\u2019s tribute car. The car ran once and won once, and then yesterday we did the All-Star Callout, and it ran twice and won twice, and then today we start clicking off the round wins.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 1996 John Force championship tribute paint scheme is 3-0 overall with 11 consecutive round wins. Force won four rounds on the way to winning the 1996 season finale, Beckman won three rounds in winning Sunday\u2019s Play NHRA All-Star Call Out and four more in winning today\u2019s Cornwell Quality Tools U.S. Nationals win. \u00a0<\/p>\n
It was the 16th\u00a0time John Force Racing has won the U.S. Nationals: John Force (5); Robert Hight (3); Ashley Force Hood (2); Mike Neff (2); Austin Prock (2); Gary Densham (1); and Beckman (1).<\/p>\n
It was also the fifth time a John Force Racing team has won the Indy double: John Force won it in 1993 and 1996; Gary Densham accomplished the feat in 2004, Austin Prock won both in 2025 and Beckman\u2019s double this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe PEAK SQUAD didn\u2019t really benefit from any luck today,\u201d said Beckman. \u201cWe went out there and we dominated every session. In the final round, it was 127 degrees. I rolled in shallow so the car would have run a 3.96. That\u2019s an exclamation point. Nobody gave us anything this weekend. We went out, and we earned every single win, and it\u2019s the same trophy, but we know how much we kicked butt today. I\u2019m feeling a little under the weather, but I wouldn\u2019t trade this weekend for any I have ever had behind the wheel of a race car.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beckman ran 3.885 seconds at 328.94 mph in round one to defeat Jeff Arend\u2019s 4.019 seconds at 320.28 mph. In round two against DeJoria, he grabbed the holeshot by almost two hundredths and put down a lap of 3.924 seconds at 329.75 mph to DeJoria\u2019s mid-track tire-spinning run of 5.323 seconds at 137.44 mph. The PEAK SQUAD then reached the final round with a semifinal-winning run of 3.962 seconds at 327.25 mph against a tire-smoking Austin Prock, who coasted across the finish line in 10.328 seconds at 81.63 mph.<\/p>\n
The PEAK SQUAD will start the 2026 Countdown to the Championship in third place.<\/p>\n
DeJoria ran 3.937 seconds at 326.16 mph in round one to defeat Chad Green\u2019s 3.977 seconds at 321.73 mph. The Bandero Caf\u00e9 team will start the 2026 Countdown to the Championship in seventh place.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is my first U.S. Nationals with John Force Racing and that, in itself, is an honor,\u201d said DeJoria. \u201cAdd to that the fact that I was able to run the Night Stalker car was just icing on the cake. We made some good runs this weekend. The Bandero Caf\u00e9 crew hustled hard and I\u2019m so proud of them. This is everything I ever dreamed of, and I\u2019m so grateful I can\u2019t wait to get back in the car to start the Countdown to the Championship.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vandergriff and J.R. Todd made identical 3.908-second runs in round one, so it came down to the Cornwell Tools driver\u2019s holeshot (.44 to .58) to claim the victory and the opportunity to move on to the second round. The second-round battle with Prock began with a slight starting line edge to Prock but it was fairly even until halftrack when the Cornwell Tools Chevy dropped a cylinder. The Cornwell Tools Chevy slowed to a run of 4.055 seconds at 314.46 mph while Prock crossed the finish line in 3.935 seconds at 328.86 mph. The Cornwell Tools team will start the 2026 Countdown to the Championship in the fourth position.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been just an unbelievable first regular season of my career, my first opportunity to even run the full season. I feel very fortunate to be in this position and John Force and Cornwell Quality Tools have been so great to me. I\u2019d give us an A in the regular season, not an A-plus because an A-plus would have been winning the regular season championship. But I\u2019ll give us an A so far and now we can set sights on the season championship. I really think our Cornwell Quality Tools team is going to have a good shot at it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hart grabbed the holeshot over Leah Pruett by just more than one hundredth of a second but the Speedmaster Top Fuel Dragster slowed after losing at least one cylinder near halftrack. He crossed the finish line at 3.869 seconds at 282.84 mph to Pruett\u2019s run of 3.713 seconds at 333.66 seconds. The Speedmaster team will start the 2026 Countdown to the Championship in the seventh position.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have an issue that is solvable and we believe we will compete for the championship,\u201d said Speedmaster crew chief Dave Grubnic. \u201cI owe it to Josh. I owe it to the guys. I owe it to the fans to fix the issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 15th of 20 races of the 2026 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series is the Sept. 18-20 NHRA Great Lakes Nationals at US 131 Motorsports Park in Martin, Mich.<\/p>\n
This story was originally published on September 8, 2026. <\/p>\n
The post Beckman Gets The \u2018Pinch Me\u2019 Moment He Wanted With Third U.S. Nationals Win<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jack Beckman was under the weather with cold symptoms throughout the week at Indianapolis Raceway Park but he and the PEAK Chevrolet SS Funny Car, carrying the 1996 John Force championship flame job tribute paint scheme, were the hottest combo on the track as they swept the weekend by winning Sunday\u2019s PlayNHRA All-Star Call Out […]<\/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-104753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104753","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=104753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104753\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}