Driving the Valvoline/Mail Terminal Services Dodge at the NAPA AUTO PARTS National Time Trials in preparation for the opening of the 2009 NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series in Pomona, Calif., Feb. 5-8, Jack Beckman posted six test laps, with his best a 4.156-second pass at 280.43 mph, set on Saturday. He is No. 8 for the weekend.

"We're not done. We're going to stay tomorrow," said Beckman. "The reason we test is that's when you find little things that would bite you otherwise at a national event where the points are important and the runs are limited. And we found a couple of things and now we are sneaking back up on the combo that we had for last year.

Driving the Valvoline/Mail Terminal Services Dodge at the NAPA AUTO PARTS National Time Trials in preparation for the opening of the 2009 NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series in Pomona, Calif., Feb. 5-8, Jack Beckman posted six test laps, with his best a 4.156-second pass at 280.43 mph, set on Saturday. He is No. 8 for the weekend.

"We're not done. We're going to stay tomorrow," said Beckman. "The reason we test is that's when you find little things that would bite you otherwise at a national event where the points are important and the runs are limited. And we found a couple of things and now we are sneaking back up on the combo that we had for last year.

"We really would like to leave here with two good solid runs under our belts. So, we'll make a couple or few tomorrow. What we did on this last run today (4.239/288.39) was we sped it up a little bit. Now we need to speed it up a lot. We just needed to make sure that we were going in the right direction.

"It's a brand-new car and they're all a little different. Each one's got its own fingerprint or personality and it's talking to us and we're trying to listen to what it wants."