Sat, 5 Sep 2009, 11:24 PM Beckman is No. 13 After Three of Five Qualifying Tries at U.S. Nats

Courtesy of Judy Stropus

CLERMONT, Ind. -- "Fast" Jack Beckman and the Valvoline/Mail Terminal Services team suffered two setbacks during qualifying for the 55th annual U.S. Nationals at Raceway Park at Indianapolis, which dropped him to No. 13.

Outside of the top 12, he will have to re-qualify in Sunday's two final qualifying rounds which will determine the final 16-car field for Monday's eliminations. His three passes in two days included a 4.254/274.89, a 4.322/246.39, in which the car suffered fire damage, and a 4.184/296.89.

"On one hand, the fact that we went down the race track and ran decent after burning the car up real bad validates what the Valvoline/MTS crew gets paid to do," said Beckman, the 2008 U.S. Nationals Funny Car runner-up. "The Valvoline/MTS guys had a lot of burned and charred stuff. They put a lot of new pieces in the car and we were able to put a tune-up in it and go down the track in the last pass.

"The problem is we weren't sure why the motor was breaking the first two runs. Both Q1 and Q2 we hurt the engines, so we had to take some power out to try to make it down the race track. The downside of that is we didn't go as quick as we should have gone on that last run.

"But at least now that we've been down the track, the motor looks good. We can look at the data and we can pump it up for tomorrow. But, I think the good sessions are gone. Now we might be racing for the 13th spot. But, heck, we've won from the bottom of the field, so we can do that. Period."

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