"Fast" Jack Beckman will start from the No. 6 position for Sunday's Funny Car eliminations after
recording his quickest pass of 4.242 seconds at 280.66 mph during Friday evening's second
qualifying round.
His other laps included a 4.625/209.82 (No. 5) on Friday, and 8.075/74.52 (No. 6) and 4.344/272.89
(No. 6) today with track temperatures exceeding 130 degrees.
He's pleased with the results. "Nice," he said. "It's a team concept here at Don Schumacher Racing.
We have (team manager) Lee (Beard) over here working with (crew chiefs) Johnny (West) and John
(Collins) and just giving us a different perspective of the computer data. And, this might be the
hottest race track we've been on all year. But, you have to think that for the next six races we're
probably going to face very similar conditions.
"You're going to have to have a solid hot-weather tune-up and be able to run well enough on that
night session Friday that you start from the top half of the field.
"I feel good. We're top half, which is where we needed to be, we have lane choice first round, and
we had two solid runs. We should be able to parlay that into a win tomorrow."
Beckman faces Bob Bode in the first round of Sunday's eliminations.
