Funny Car racer Jack Beckman might have had a hard time getting going this season with a failure to qualify at the first event. But with Friday's qualifying performance at the Lucas Oil Nationals, he appears nearly unstoppable as the Countdown to the Championship approaches.
 
The Don Schumacher Racing headliner drove the Infinite Hero Dodge Charger to both ends of the 1,000-foot Brainerd (Minn.) International Raceway record. He did it with a 3.946-second elapsed time and 324.75-mph speed that the provisional No. 1 qualifier said fell a little short of expectations from crew chiefs Jimmy Prock, John Medlen, and Chris Cunningham.
 
Still, it was an improvement from the super-stout 3.976-second pass at 319.90 mph in the opening session, when only he and Robert Hight powered under the 4-second mark.
 
In the evening session, Beckman went even quicker and faster than he had before to hold off a flurry of 3.9-second E.T.s from Courtney Force (3.959), Tommy Johnson Jr. (3.974 at 319.60 mph), Hight (3.974 at 319.07), Chad Head (3.976), and Matt Hagan (3.996).
 
"The interesting thing on that 3.94 . . . there were several areas where it wasn't as good as we had hoped it was going to be," Beckman said. He quickly added, "And that's a wonderful feeling, when you miss it by a little bit and the car still goes out there and runs that good."

He said he knew he had the luxury of pushing the car even harder in the second session.
 
"Unloading with such a good run absolutely put us in a wonderful position," Beckman said. "We could swing harder, and if we missed it we were still solidly in with a 3.97. But we had good data. The difference between a 3.97 and [a 3.94] – we really wanted to run a .93 – was not going to be that much."

That 3.946-second pass was third-quickest in class history, giving Beckman the top four E.T.s ever and moving him into the points lead past DSR teammate Matt Hagan.  This marks the first time since Beckman claimed the 2012 championship that he has led the standings. It also is the third consecutive event at which he and his team have set an E.T. record.
 
Breaking into what he called his "Winston Churchill speech," Beckman said, "I have never seen so many Funny Cars gain so much in such a small period of time." (The quote is a knockoff of the late wartime British prime minister's declaration "Never was so much owed by so many to so few" in praise of the Royal Air Force.)
 
"What happened was they looked at our time slip," Beckman said. "It used to be a certain amount of driveshaft speed on your computer was all it tolerated, because the car couldn't make it too much further if it was too hot. Well, now when they look and see our numbers, they go, 'We've got to approach this differently. The only way to get quicker early [in the first 60 or 330 feet] is to is to raise that rear-wheel speed up some. We know how to do that.'
 
"It stuns me – but it shows me how smart all the crew chiefs are here – how quickly they gathered us back up. We've got to figure out how to take it to another level from here," he said.
 
If they do, the Dodge almost literally will live up to its nickname "The Prock Rocket."
 
Prock, reluctant to show his hand too soon and give his competitors too much of a chance to solve his secrets before the six-race title run, remarked at Sonoma, "Maybe we should have waited until Indy to do this."
 
However, as Beckman said, "But we didn’t know if all the changes we were doing were going to have that effect. So we had to try it. Maybe with a crystal ball we would have waited until Indy. But I still like the position that we're in. Everybody has been forced to come outside their comfort zone to chase us."
 
The Indianapolis reference signaled the NHRA's marquee race, the Chevy Performance U.S. Nationals, which is the next race on the schedule. It's the last race of the so-called regular season and the one at which the 10 championship-eligible drivers will be locked into the elite field.
 
Despite the ease with which these achievements seems to have come in the past couple of months, Beckman remains grateful. "Having the year I had last year makes me appreciate what we're doing this year so much more than had we been coming off a really good year," the 2012 champion said, dredging up memories of a winless year without any No. 1 starts and a bleak 14-24 elimination-round record.
 
"This is more than anybody could hope or ask for," Beckman said.
 
It's certainly more than his rivals hoped he'd have, as well. They'll have two more shots Saturday at knocking him off that top spot.
 
As for this advantage in his quest to win for the first time here, Beckman said, "I've come frustratingly close twice here. And of the five I've won this year, only Sonoma was at a track that I'd never won at before. I definitely want to add Brainerd to that list."
 
If no one can trump him Saturday, Beckman will lead the field for the 14th time overall and fourth time this season.

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