It will be 20 years ago this Thursday, on Oct. 29, 2006, that Jack Beckman defeated Tommy Johnson Jr. at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway to earn his first NHRA Funny Car final round win in his first final round appearance.<\/p>\n
The win total has grown to 39 over the past 20 years and it has created the opportunity for Beckman and his John Force Racing PEAK Chevrolet SS Funny Car team to reach the 40-win milestone at the Oct. 30-Nov. 1 NHRA Las Vegas Nationals.<\/p>\n
\u201cLas Vegas used to give us two shots a year and I won a lot of Sportsman races there over the years,\u201d recalled Beckman. \u201cBut when I won my pro race there, I thought, \u2018Okay, I\u2019ve got something going with this track.\u2019 It has been mighty greedy over the last 19 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I remember most about that 2006 win is that I raced with the same philosophy that I do now. In the semifinal, I rolled as shallow as I could, got the win, and then I watched Tommy Johnson beat Eric Medlen in the other semifinal. We had lane choice in the final round and it made a difference in the outcome. It\u2019s validating to know that 20 years later, I\u2019m still using the same philosophy. It was nighttime when we ran the final round and we had an all-carbon fiber body with sponsor decals but no paint on it. I just looked menacing and it ran that way. I was so fortunate when I came into the Funny Car class. I\u2019ve always driven for top-flight crews, crew chiefs, and car owners and man, did that feel good.\u201d<\/p>\n
The PEAK SQUAD is currently fifth in the point standings on the strength of two wins (Epping, Indianapolis) and three runner-up finishes (Charlotte, Maryland, Norwalk), 160 points out of the top spot currently occupied by Matt Hagan, but only 62 out of second place.<\/p>\n
\u201cBarring a miracle, we\u2019re not going to win the championship,\u201d Beckman admitted. \u201cBut the wonderful thing about drag racing is our season\u2019s not over. We still have 10% of it left. We have two races and just as much incentive to win those races as if we were contending for the championship. We can certainly still finish second in the championship. Our goal is the same. We\u2019re still going to treat qualifying like all the bonus points matter because even if it doesn\u2019t get us first place, maybe it\u2019s a bonus point that gets to second place. We\u2019ll treat everything the exact same way. People may say the pressure off but it\u2019s not because it\u2019s the same level of pressure to win every single race.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beckman will be signing autographs Sat., Oct. 31, from 9:30-10 a.m. at the Cornwell Tools midway display.<\/p>\n
NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series qualifying will feature two rounds at 1 and 3:30 p.m. PT on Friday, Oct. 30, followed by the final two rounds on Saturday, Oct. 31 at noon and 2:30 p.m. Final eliminations are scheduled for 11:00 a.m. PT on Sunday, Nov. 1.<\/p>\n
Television coverage includes qualifying action on FS1 at 3 p.m. ET on Sunday, Nov. 1, followed by eliminations at 5 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n
The post Jack Beckman Looking for 40th Career Funny Car Victory at Same Track He Earned His First<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It will be 20 years ago this Thursday, on Oct. 29, 2006, that Jack Beckman defeated Tommy Johnson Jr. at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway to earn his first NHRA Funny Car final round win in his first final round appearance. The win total has grown to 39 over the past 20 years […]<\/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-105114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105114","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=105114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105114\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}