The disappointment of the 2014 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series season still stings for Funny Car standout Jack Beckman. It is also a major reason why the 2012 Funny Car world champion appears so motivated and ready for 2015.
Beckman finished out of the top 10 for the first time in a full-time driving role, ending a streak of top-five finishes that dated back to 2007. Not ready to relive that frustration again, Beckman has retooled and reloaded for a championship chase in his 10,000-horsepower Infinite Hero Foundation Dodge Charger R/T.
Famed crew chief Jimmy Prock will be calling the shots and Beckman has his sights aimed at building plenty of early-season momentum at the famed Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park during the 31st annual CARQUEST Auto Parts NHRA Nationals, Feb. 20-22.
“I absolutely cannot wait,” Beckman said. “There are no guarantees. It’s 10,000-horsepower cars and anytime you pour nitro in the tank all bets are off. You just have to look at track records. Jimmy Prock has proven over decades that he will put the fastest car around his drivers and he will always get race wins and challenge for a championship.”
The top drivers in Top Fuel, Funny Car and Pro Stock will all head to Phoenix for the second of 24 races on the 2015 circuit. Antron Brown (Top Fuel), Alexis DeJoria (Funny Car) and Allen Johnson (Pro Stock) were last year’s winners of the event that will once again be televised nationally on ESPN2.
It’s an opportunity for Beckman to show what his team can do after a disappointing season-opening weekend in Pomona where the team failed to qualify after getting only three attempts. A late afternoon rain shower on Saturday wiped out the final qualifying session and any chance that Beckman had to make the 16-car field.
For the first time in 65 NHRA events and first since the sixth race of the 2012 season Beckman did not qualify for the elimination rounds at a Mello Yello Series event.
“Not qualifying is something that just isn’t in the vocabulary of any of the Don Schumacher Racing nitro teams, a group that has amassed 240 race wins and 13 world championships including mine in 2012,” Beckman said. “Throw in the fact that this is the opening race of the year, and at my home track, and you start to understand how devastating this could be.”
Beckman said the rainy weather that moved into Southern California on Saturday was not to blame. He said he and his team will dust themselves off and head to Phoenix early for some testing so they can figure out the car and be ready to get things back on track at the CARQUEST Auto Parts NHRA Nationals.
“I’m not going to wax philosophically, but here’s the way I have to look at it: We had the same amount of attempts as every other car, and we certainly can’t blame Mother Nature,” Beckman said. “It is what it is, and having a poor attitude about it certainly isn’t going to change our situation. What a poor attitude can do is carry over into future performance, and I’m not going to let that happen.”
His Pomona effort continued a theme that ran through much of 2014, although it was with a different crew chief at the helm. Beckman posted a final round appearance early in 2014 at Houston but never found any sort of rhythm or consistency. Instead, he said it seemingly felt like an episode of the “Twilight Zone,” as Beckman and his team continually suffered through one problem after another. The end result was missing the Countdown to the Championship, a tough pill to swallow in what was arguably the most frustrating season of Beckman’s standout career.
“It was extremely difficult,” Beckman said. “Up until the first round at Indy I would have bet a $1,000 that our car would have been in the Countdown and challenging for another top five spot. I know we had dug ourselves a pretty deep hole and made the path difficult, but I just knew we were overcome that. I don’t know what it was. We were snake bitten wherever we went.”
After winning the championship in 2012 by edging out teammate Ron Capps, Beckman finished third in 2013. Still, his winless streak dates back to 2012, a clear indication his talented team suffered through a number of maladies last season.
“If it was one thing maybe I would be more frustrated because maybe we should have fixed that one thing,” Beckman said. “But I’m not sure what we did wrong except our results were lousy.”
Beckman, who has 15 career victories, has posted three wins in Phoenix. But he’ll also face off against a talented field that includes DeJoria, who claimed her first career victory last year, reigning world champion and current points leader Matt Hagan, who won the season-opener at Pomona, and 16-time champ John Force, who has eight Phoenix wins. Three-time Phoenix winner Capps, who was runner-up at Pomona last weekend, two-time winner Del Worsham and Funny Car’s winningest female Courtney Force are also in the mix of pre-race favorites.
The addition of Prock, who has worked with the likes of Hight, Joe Amato, Cory McClenathan and John Force, also brings a certain amount of expectations for Beckman. That means an increased spotlight for Beckman as well, and he is embracing the challenge of performing at a high level in 2015.
“I know it’s no guarantee of anything, but I like the feeling that I absolutely need to be on my ‘A’ game because I’m going to be on the magnifying glass for a lot of folks,” Beckman said. “The last two guys he tuned for were John Force and Robert Hight. He tuned Joe Amato. He’s had some of the greatest drivers in the sport. We’re expected to be successful and I’m expected to help carry the ball on that end and I cannot wait.”.
