Jack Beckman and the Valvoline/Mail Terminal Services Dodge Charger R/T team are still hot as they prepare to compete in the second of six events of the Countdown to 1 playoffs at the 23rd annual NHRA Fall Nationals on Sunday.
Entering Sunday’s eliminations, Beckman is now tied with Cruz Pedregon in first place by virtue of his No. 5 qualifying effort (Pedregon qualified No. 10). Beckman posted his quickest pass of the weekend on Friday evening, a 4.099-second elapsed time at 300.00 mph, earning him No. 5 at the time. He held onto that spot through the next two qualifying rounds today of 4.758/165.82 and 4.218/289.51. Not surprisingly, his out-of-the-box run of 4.131/295.21 early Friday was good for No. 1 at the time.
He faces his Don Schumacher Racing teammate Jerry Toliver in the opening round of eliminations. Toliver is not a contender in the Countdown.
“It’s weird,” said Beckman. “It’s not our typical m.o. Normally we’re not great at night and we’re phenomenal in the heat, and we were OK today, but I think that was a byproduct of being so good Friday night.
“It gave us the luxury to try a couple of things today to have a good race-day tune-up. For instance, in Q4 we put a fresh set of tires on so we could scuff them for race day, which is an advantage we wouldn’t have had had we not run good Friday.
“Everybody who can qualify can win the race. God, I want to see Jerry win a race before this year’s out, but since we have to race him tomorrow, I don’t want it to be this race,” Beckman said with a smile.
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