Oh, the irony.

Exactly one year ago, veteran tuner Jimmy Prock was tuning John Force to a victory at the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals in Norwalk, Ohio. On Sunday, Prock found himself on the other side of an intense rivalry between Force and his chief rival, Don Schumacher Racing, as he helped tune DSR driver Jack Beckman to a win at the very same track.

Beckman collected his 18th career national event win and third of the season Sunday at the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals at Summit Motorsports Park, defeating Courtney Force in another tense chapter in the rivalry between the two competing organizations. Joining Beckman in the winner’s circle on Sunday were Doug Kalitta (Top Fuel), Greg Anderson (Pro Stock) and Karen Stoffer (Pro Stock Motorcycle).

“If you went to every Funny Car driver out there and said give me your top two picks for crew chief, who do you want to have in your corner, he may not be first on everybody’s list, but Jimmy Prock will be on everybody’s list,” Beckman said. “He is one bad man.”

Helping fan the flames between the top two organizations in drag racing today, Beckman defeated all three John Force Racing Funny Cars on his way to the win. Beckman had wins over John Force, Robert Hight and Courtney Force, along with a semifinal victory over Tim Wilkerson, to earn his second Wally at the Norwalk, Ohio track. It is the second time in his career Beckman has eliminated a trio of JFR cars to earn a win.

After snapping a 55-race winless streak at Charlotte back in March, Beckman has now won three of the last nine races to move up to third in the championship standings.

“After going over two years without a win, I’d love to quote all of the sports psychology cliches, but sometimes you wonder - was that the last win we are ever going to get,” Beckman said. “Now, I have three wins so far this year. I have never won more than three in a year. We may never win another one again and we may win the next three. Either way, it is comforting to know that we have a car that is capable of winning every week.”

Beckman struggled from the onset during the Independence Day weekend race, qualifying 11th Saturday night. The bottom-half performance matched Beckman with John Force in the opening round and set up a tough road to the final. But Beckman was up to the challenge, going four solid rounds to put the Infinite Hero Foundation Dodge Charger R/T back in the winner’s circle.

In the final, Beckman got off the line first, but Courtney Force took over and led through the next few segments on the racetrack. But the Traxxas Chevrolet Camaro SS Funny Car lost traction just shy of the finish line as Beckman blasted by with a 4.211-second pass at 301.67 mph to take the win. Force had a 4.609 at 199.64 in the runner-up effort.

“The interesting thing about a Nitro Funny Car, they are pretty damn fast. And the visibility is pretty horrible. So when you are motoring along, you are kind of thinking you are about the fastest thing on the planet at that point,” Beckman said. “When you don’t see the other car, you think, ‘I’ve got this,’ but I can’t tell you how many times I have thought that I have got it only to see the other win light come on and see their nose peak out.

“In that final, our car didn’t make a great lap, but I also didn’t see her either. At that point, you are like, ‘come on finish line.’ It can’t come fast enough when the car is not pulling like it should.”

Beckman’s final was made even more stressful when the team realized that they had cracked the injector in the shutdown area following their semifinal win over Wilkerson. The team thrashed to get the car ready for the final round, but with the shortened turnaround due to the live ESPN broadcast, the team didn’t have an opportunity to warmup the car prior to the run.

“Going into the final, we threw a different injector on it. We start it up and all of the cylinders, we couldn’t get the temperatures evened out. So we put a different supercharger and a third injector on it and there was no time to warm it up,” Beckman said. “We drug the car up for the final round and actually beat Courtney’s team even after making all of those changes. We had to rely on a lot of DSR employees from the other Funny Car teams to come over and lend a hand.

“When we started it up for the final, we don’t know if the idle is going to be way too low or way too high. We have to take a guess on the burnout limiter. So when I floor the throttle for the burnout, there is a lot of stuff going through my head that probably shouldn’t be going through my head going into a final.

“Fortunately, it ended up fine for us. The car didn’t run what we thought it was going to run, but it was good enough to win. With these short turnarounds, the live TV is fantastic, but it also increases the likelihood of bringing cars to the line that don’t have the best tune-up on them.”

Three of Beckman’s four opponents on Sunday ran into trouble during their runs, with John and Courtney Force and semifinal opponent Wilkerson all smoking the tires. The closest race of the afternoon took place in the second round when Hight, off of the strength of his best qualifying effort of the season, took Beckman to the wire with a 4.104 to a 4.173.

Courtney Force had an equally impressive run to the final, eliminating the top two drivers in points - Matt Hagan and Ron Capps - in addition to Del Worsham.

Hagan and Capps remained the top two drivers in points, but the gap was closed, with Beckman moving up to third. DSR teams how make up the top three spots in the championship standings, followed by Worsham and John Force.

“Man, what a year we are having. We went and won at Charlotte and that was bitching because it ended a 55-race winless streak. We went out and won Topeka with all of these delays for weather and run five three-second runs. Then we come here with a brand new front half on the car and with an entire new bell housing, completely different clutch configuration, and we win again,” Beckman said. “But that is what Jimmy Prock does. Dickie (Venables) and Matt Hagan, they have been setting the standard and we recognized that by the time we get to the Countdown, we have to have something that will play with that car.

“If this season turns out the way I think it can turn out, we have a lot to look forward to.”