Not only did Jack Beckman capture the pole position at the Fram Autolite NHRA Nationals, he did it in track record-setting fashion at 4.063 seconds at 311.56 mph at Infineon Raceway.

Beckman’s blistering record run came on Friday night right before the track’s strict 10 pm curfew.

“It’s always cool the next year to see your name with the track records,” Beckman said. “I didn’t even know we had set those track records until about an hour later when I came up in the press room, and that was just icing on the cake. I had no idea those were the quickest and fastest times, but I have no complaints.”

This was Beckman’s first pole of the season and third of his career. Beckman, who pilots the Valvoline/Mail Terminal Services Dodge for Don Schumacher Racing, meets No. 16 qualifier Jeff Diehl in the first round of eliminations Sunday.

Not only did Jack Beckman capture the pole position at the Fram Autolite NHRA Nationals, he did it in track record-setting fashion at 4.063 seconds at 311.56 mph at Infineon Raceway.

Beckman’s blistering record run came on Friday night right before the track’s strict 10 pm curfew.

“It’s always cool the next year to see your name with the track records,” Beckman said. “I didn’t even know we had set those track records until about an hour later when I came up in the press room, and that was just icing on the cake. I had no idea those were the quickest and fastest times, but I have no complaints.”

This was Beckman’s first pole of the season and third of his career. Beckman, who pilots the Valvoline/Mail Terminal Services Dodge for Don Schumacher Racing, meets No. 16 qualifier Jeff Diehl in the first round of eliminations Sunday.

On his first qualifying pass Saturday, Beckman slowed to 6.410 seconds and then bounced back with a 4.192-second time in his final qualifying run.

“The fortunate thing about running good on Friday is that you can test on Saturday,” Beckman said. “For the first run Saturday we were able to try some things in the clutch that may or may not help us later in the season. Though it showed some promise on our third qualifying run, we went up in smoke. So, we went back to our stock stuff and tried that for the fourth session and it ran great. Not only are we happy, but we’re pretty enthusiastic going into Sunday.”

Beckman, who is fourth in the point standings, says there’s no real secret formula for success Sunday.

“We just have to race the track,” Beckman said. “I think that is always the deal in nitro racing. We’re No. 1 and we’re racing No. 16, but if we don’t race the race track we could get upset in the first round. You would think if you have somebody covered by two tenths, you can just turn that big knob down a couple of notches and make a safe run, but you can’t do that because it is such a fine line. If you take too much out of it, the car is just going to go out there and shake and go into tire smoke. We have to just race the race track.”