MADISON, Ill. — Jack Beckman has a plan for winning the Mission Foods Funny Car championship on behalf of John Force, who continues to receive treatment for the TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) he suffered in a June 23 crash at Virginia Motorsports Park.
“Win a race,” Beckman said on the eve of this week’s 28th NHRA Midwest Nationals at World Wide Technology Raceway, the track across the Mississippi River from St. Louis. “Then rinse and repeat. Win a race, then win a race, then win a race.
“(That) entails continually improving, not just the performance of our PEAK Chevy, but also my driving skills,” he said. “All of us are up for challenge and planning to showcase that this weekend. This team has earned bonus points on eight straight qualifying runs and on 11 of the last 13, which is unprecedented. That kind of consistency surely will translate into race wins soon.”
Of course, the 2012 Funny Car World Champion is fully aware of the elephant in the room.
“That’s their goal, too,” he said of John Force Racing teammate Austin Prock and a Cornwell Tools team that leads the Funny Car pack by 129 points after the first two races in the Countdown, “and the way they’re running, that’s going to be totally tough on the rest of us.”
Beckman, who returned to his job as an elevator repairman after losing his previous ride at the end of the 2020 season, has turned in a remarkable performance in his first four races as Force’s surrogate, moving from sixth to third in points.
The problem is that he’s lost to Prock the only two times they’ve met – in the finals of the Countdown opener at Reading, Pa., and in the semifinals last week at Charlotte, N.C.
“I’m not taking anything away from Ron Capps, Matt Hagan, Bob Tasca III or J.R. Todd,” Beckman said of the other title contenders, “but, this year, Austin’s been the best (driver) in a Funny Car and his dad (crew chief Jimmy Prock) has been the best in tuning a Funny Car.
“Their completion ratio is just off the charts,” he said, referring to the number of times the blue-and-black Chevy has reached the finish under power. “To be that quick and make it to the finish line under so many different conditions, they’re just raising the bar for everybody else. We’re just going to have to try harder. It shows us what’s possible.”