After an 11-year absence, two-time Top Fuel World Champion Brittany Force made the most of her Saturday return to the Cornwell Tools \u201cNight Under Fire,\u201d pushing her blue-and-black Cornwell dragster to the night\u2019s quickest time and fastest speed (3.840 seconds at 320.20 miles per hour) en route to a momentum-building victory at Summit Motorsport Park.<\/p>\n
John Force Racing missed a double-up win in Funny Car when mechanical issues slowed Jack Beckman and the PEAK Antifreeze and Coolant Chevrolet Camaro SS to 8.766 seconds at only 85.51 mph in a final round loss to Dale Creasy Jr.<\/p>\n
Moto Lenz Photos<\/p>\n
\ufeff\u201cBill Bader\u2019s events are always a highlight of the season (and) competing in them is such a privilege,\u201d Brittany said.\u00a0\u201cWe ran the quickest ET in the first round (but) in the final, our car started to spin (the tires).\u00a0Fortunately, it was good enough for the win which gives us momentum heading into Brainerd (Minn., site of the Aug. 16-18 Lucas Oil Nationals, next event in the NHRA\u2019s Mission Foods Series).<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, despite the final round disappointment, Beckman was pleased with the overall direction of his first week filling in for John Force, who continues to recover from a TBI suffered in a June 23 crash in Richmond, Va.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m still wrapping my head around the fact that it\u2019s actually me sitting in John Force\u2019s car,\u201d said the 33-time NHRA tour winner.\u00a0\u201c(JFR president) Robert Hight did a conference call on Friday and I got to speak to John for the first time since his accident.\u00a0That was medicine for the soul.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Then), John called me (Saturday) before I got in the car.\u00a0He said, \u2018just go out there and do what you know how to do.\u00a0There\u2019s no pressure,\u2019\u201d recounted the former NHRA national record holder.\u00a0\u201cAnd he was right.\u00a0I actually came out here to get licensed and wound up having a ton of fun in the process.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI got to know (the members of) John\u2019s PEAK team.\u00a0I\u2019ve known a few of them, but I got to spend more time with the rest of them and, I guess, under the circumstances, you could not have asked for a better way to get indoctrinated to the car and the team,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
After a set-up run of 4.007 seconds at 308.28 mph on Friday, \u201cFast Jack\u201d was the No. 1 qualifier Saturday with a first round time of 4.047 at 309.34 mph.\u00a0Unfortunately, his final round troubles enabled Creasy Jr. to win in a pedestrian 6.395 seconds at 107.10 mph.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a couple of electric gremlins, which is always frustrating,\u201d said the man who taught more than 7,000 students the mechanics of the sport as an instructor at Frank Hawley\u2019s Drag Racing School, \u201cbut it could have been worse.\u00a0If it would have happened in Brainerd, it could have (really) put us behind the eight ball.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got to step on the throttle a bunch of times,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u201cI got the runs I needed to get my license (renewed) and we probably learned a couple things about the car.\u00a0Remember, John and I don\u2019t weigh the same (and) our driving styles are a little bit different.\u00a0The crew and I are going to have to meld our styles together to where everything is predictable again for them (like) it was when John was driving.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest thing is now I know how to go home and visualize exactly what this car looks like, feels like, sounds like and responds like.\u00a0I\u2019ll be better when we get to Brainerd. \u00a0You have to remember, it\u2019s a brand new car.\u00a0(It) had never been down the racetrack before, so I think we checked off all the boxes.\u201d<\/p>\n
This story was originally published on August 5, 2024. <\/p>\n
The post Brittany Force Wins \u2018Night Under Fire,\u2019 Jack Beckman Makes JFR Debut<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After an 11-year absence, two-time Top Fuel World Champion Brittany Force made the most of her Saturday return to the Cornwell Tools \u201cNight Under Fire,\u201d pushing her blue-and-black Cornwell dragster to the night\u2019s quickest time and fastest speed (3.840 seconds at 320.20 miles per hour) en route to a momentum-building victory at Summit Motorsport Park. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95263","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"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95263\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}