Jack Beckman and the Valvoline/Mail Terminal Services Dodge Funny Car team had a tough time
qualifying for the NHRA Northwest Nationals at Pacific Raceways this weekend, finally settling for
No. 14 after recording a respectable 4.397-second lap at 227.49 mph in the final qualifying round
today.
Loss of traction in each of the three previous attempts produced a 9.323/76.94, a 5.577/132.13, and
a 6.092/107.21.
"All of a sudden this thing is a monster for horsepower with the tune-up changes that we did for
Denver, even coming back to some of the sea-level adjustments," explained Beckman, a two-time
season titlist. "We couldn't back it down.
"The problem is when you're smoking the tires you don't know if you're barely smoking them or
really smoking them, so you don't know how much to back it down to get down the race track. And we
were down to one run and it forced us to over-compensate and really slow down the Valvoline/MTS
Dodge.
"Hopefully, where that will get us is a little bit closer to that threshold for tomorrow. Had we
gone out and smoked the tires that final run we would have been completely lost. At least now we
know we can step it up in a couple of areas of the run for the first round."
Beckman faces his Don Schumacher Racing teammate Matt Hagan in Sunday's opening round of
eliminations. "The tough part is having to race a teammate, and Hagan's car has been pretty fast
this weekend, so we definitely have our work cut out for us first round," he said.
