TOPEKA, Kan.- Even though Jack Beckman lost the first round of the NHRA Summer Nationals Funny Car eliminations today at Heartland Park Topeka, it didn’t dampen his enthusiasm, confidence and expectations. All those emotions were soaring following the solid performance of the Valvoline/Mail Terminal Services Dodge Charger R/T all weekend.
Beckman’s loss to Bristol, Tenn., winner Melanie Troxel was close, just .0304-of-a-second short, as Troxel took the win light with a 4.940-second pass at 297.81 mph to Beckman’s losing 4.976-second run and a faster speed of 303.03 mph.
The California native had moved into 10th after qualifying 12th, but is now back in No. 11 in a tight battle among all the Funny Car competitors to make it into the top 10 when the Countdown to the Championship begins following the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis on Labor Day weekend. He’s just 11 points out of the top 10.
“I think fifth or 15th is where all the excitement is going to be from here to Indy in the points deal,” said Beckman. “Like (crew chief) Johnny West said, we made a couple of changes to the Valvoline/MTS Dodge and we’re going to start picking away at it and what we need to do is go down the race track every run to get data. And the truth of the matter is that Melanie was on a monster run and had problems and slowed down. We just needed her to have problems about 200 ft. earlier on that run. “
“You know, we made four good runs out of five trips down the race track this weekend. It’s always frustrating if you lose. I’d rather run like crap and win than run good and lose.”
“The positive spin to put on it, though, is that Tommy (DeLago, co-crew chief) and Johnny (West) are looking at the computer data and hopefully they’ll find areas in the run where we can make the car fast and still keep it safe down there and not smoke the tires, and hopefully we’ll have a little better car come Chicago, and a little bit better car come the next race.”
FUNNY CAR POINT STANDINGS, after nine events:
1. Tim Wilkerson, 643
2. Ashley Force, 562
3. John Force, 520
4. Cruz Pedregon, 508
5. Robert Hight, 506
6. Ron Capps, 435
7. Tony Pedregon, 435
8. Gary Densham, 407
9. Mike Neff, 393
10. Bob Tasca III, 374
11. Jack Beckman, 363
12. Del Worsham, 348
13. Gary Scelzi, 344
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