CONCORD, N.C. – Jack Beckman got off to a fast start during the NTK NHRA Carolina Nationals on Friday evening at zMAX Dragway by racing to the provisional No. 1 spot in the Funny Car class on the opening day of qualifying.
Beckman, who is in search of his second Funny Car victory of the year after kicking off the Countdown to the Championship with a win at Pennsylvania’s Maple Grove Raceway, stole the top spot during the second round of qualifying Friday evening thanks to a 3.873-second pass at 334.07 mph.
The 2012 Funny Car champion, who struggled in the first round of qualifying and was forced to qualify early during the second round Friday night, said he didn’t expect his run to keep him at the top of the board.
RELATED: Prusiensky Taken To Hospital After Crash At zMAX
“When you don’t get to run later on the Friday night session you don’t see as many cars, you don’t have as cool a race track and everybody behind you sees how good you ran,” Beckman said. “I just didn’t get to enjoy any part of that run. It didn’t feel that fast to me because I was thinking so much about the things I had to do right.
“There is no way I thought that was going to hold simply because you had six more pairs of cars behind us that just saw what the race track was capable of.”
Funny Car championship leader Robert Hight is currently second, .005 seconds off the time set by Beckman. Hight and Beckman ran identical 334.07 mph speeds, but Beckman’s elapsed time was barely better than that of Hight. Ron Capps currently sits third on the qualifying chart.
Defending event winner and reigning NHRA Top Fuel champion Steve Torrence is in command of the Top Fuel class thanks to a strong 3.711-second run at a speed of 325.53 mph in his Capco Contractors dragster during the second round of qualifying Friday night.
Torrence earned a few bonus points for his class-leading effort, but the Texan said he isn’t thinking about that just yet.
“It’s way too early to worry about those points right now,” Torrence said. “If you even remotely start looking at them you can allow that whole thing to get in your head and you don’t want that there for the next round. You don’t want that there for this race or the next three.
“As a team, as a driver we do the best we can to keep that at bay and concentrate on the task at hand. We needed to go out here and we needed to qualify well and we had two good runs today. Tomorrow we’ll work on our Sunday tune-up and try to the best as possible on Sunday.”
Richie Crampton, who won the first Top Fuel race of the Countdown at Maple Grove, currently sits second thanks to his 3.742-second pass during the second round of qualifying. Two-time Top Fuel champion Antron Brown currently sits third in the class.
Erica Enders claimed the provisional No. 1 spot In Pro Stock qualifying with a 6.506-second pass at 211.86 mph during the second round of qualifying. Enders also topped the first round of qualifying, but improved upon her time from the first session to retain the top spot in the second round after watching her teammate Jeg Coughlin Jr. go to the top of the board right before her second run.
“Seeing my teammate Jeg Coughlin go to the pole position right in front of me, my crew chiefs both radioed back that if I staged shallow and hit my shifts that we were going to be back in the No. 1 spot,” Enders said. “We have a really great race car and it’s my job to drive it the best that I can.”
Coughlin is currently second fastest in his pink JEGS Camaro, .022 seconds slower than Enders. Line, the championship leader in Pro Stock entering the NHRA Carolina Nationals, is currently third.
Jerry Savoie used a 6.801-second run at 196.85 mph during the first qualifying session to take the provisional No. 1 spot in Pro Stock Motorcycle aboard his White Alligator Racing Suzuki.
“Coming in I’m a little greedy this weekend because I didn’t feel like I had a fair shake in the last race. As you know I lost in the first round to Hector (Arana) Jr.,” Savoie said. “We had a glitch in the bike in third gear and unfortunately I couldn’t catch him after that.
“Just about got everything out of it in the conditions we were running,” Savoie added.
Screamin’ Eagle Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson rider Eddie Krawiec was second fastest, .017 seconds off Savoie’s pace. Krawiec’s teammate and championship leader Andrew Hines recovered from a bad run in the opening round by jumping to third fastest overall in the second round of qualifying.