Jack Beckman grabbed his highest qualifying position of the year today, No. 3, in the
rain-shortened qualifying rounds for the 25th annual NHRA Nationals at Maple Grove Raceway, outside
of Reading, Pa.
Only two qualifying sessions (of four) were completed between rain delays and cleaning up water
seeping through the track surface, and Beckman and the Valvoline/Mail Terminal Services Dodge Funny
Car team made the most of it. Beckman came out strong in the only round on Friday, with a
4.180-second pass at 296.83 mph, good for No. 10 at the time.
In today's only qualifying run, Beckman improved handily with a 4.134/297.68, catapulting him to
No. 3. He will face his former Don Schumacher Racing teammate Jerry Toliver in the first round of
Sunday's eliminations.
"This is where running good off the trailer makes all the difference in the world," said Beckman,
safely in the Countdown to 1 playoffs for the top 10 in points, which begin after this event and
the next one in Indianapolis.
"We were comfortably in the field on Friday, so we could afford to step on it a little bit today.
We were two thousandths (of a second) away from the No. 2 spot. That's the best we've been all
year, so that's cool.
"We're going to start out at the top, we're going to get a few more points for being No. 3, we'll
have lane choice and, in theory, you get a more favorable pairing, but they're all tough on
Sundays.
"I'm excited. I think that, in the last three runs that we did in Brainerd (Minn., last Sunday) and
the two here, the car's done everything that we've told it to do, and that had been the missing
ingredient from what we had last year.
"It just wasn't quite as predictable. I think now we're back in that zone where this car is
predictable and now it's going to start getting quicker every run."
