Jack Beckman last won an NHRA Wally in the nitro Funny Car class May 18, 2025, in Chicago.
So having to wait an extra five days to break his winless streak – because the nitro Funny Car finals at the New England Nationals in Epping, N.H., were postponed on June 7 because of rain – didn’t faze Beckman.
Beckman clocked a 4.017-second elapsed time at 318.54 mph in his John Force Racing Camaro to defeat his teammate Jordan Vandergriff, who slowed to 6.291 seconds at 106.68 mph in the final round. That duel took place during Friday night’s qualifying session in Bristol, Tenn.
“I wouldn’t care if we ran this Friday night at Indy, our PEAK team left with the trophy,” Beckman said. “To not have won for over a year … we had some struggles. I thought this time last year we probably had the most consistent Funny Car, and we just lost that tune-up window. It used to be that even if we missed it, we were still a top-three car. And then it got to be that it was just finicky.
“We qualified No. 1 in Chicago [this year, May 16], but I didn’t think we were out of the woods yet. Our car just still wasn’t doing what we asked it to do all the time. [Crew chiefs Tim Fabrisi and Danny Hood] went back and found some parts on the clutch. They’re like, ‘You know, we’re going to index everything in here. We’re going to replace anything that’s questionable.’ We showed up at Maryland [May 29-31], went down the track eight runs. And I think we’ve made it down the track 14 of our last 17 runs. So we’re back to that consistency that wins races. Because before you can be quick, you have to be consistent. And to be consistent, it has to be predictable. And I think we’re back in that window right now.”
This was Beckman’s 38th career NHRA nitro Funny Car Wally. In Epping, he defeated Phil Burkhart, Matt Hagan and Ron Capps. Then he took down his JFR teammate Jordan Vandergriff in the finals – in Bristol, the site of this weekend’s Super Grip Thunder Valley Nationals.
“When the win light came on [against Vandergriff], it was pretty gratifying,” Beckman said.
Beckman, who was the 2012 NHRA Funny Car champion while driving for Don Schumacher Racing, acknowledged that he wishes he would have finished what he started in Epping – for the fans.
“I’ve never done that. I have raced late Sunday night. I’ve raced Mondays where it was delayed for an entire day. I’ve never come back to a different venue to finish a prior race. And I have to tell you, I don’t mind it one bit now,” Beckman said. “The toughest thing about it is the people at Epping paid to see a race.
“We had a car that was just stellar and went low E.T. the entire meet into the semifinals. And we did the same thing in Maryland. But for whatever reason, the better racetrack in the final round in Maryland ate up our tune-up. And we got outran.
“We thought we’d get some vindication in Epping. We didn’t get a chance to run it. We came here [Bristol], and both the JFR Camaros spun the tires in the first qualifying session. And then we get to come up for the second one, it starts raining. And I’m thinking, ‘Here we go again.’ We were in and out of the cars twice in Epping. We got another rain delay going here in Bristol for the Epping final round. You just waited out. I got to tell you, my years of racing, I am so prepared for this. When are we going to run? I don’t care. Just let me know when we need to go up to the lanes. We just got it done.”
Beckman was quick to credit his crew for helping him get to the finish line first.
“Tim and Dan just made a great call, when Q1, there were so many aborted runs. Nobody ran anywhere close [to the three-second range]. And we didn’t know how much the racetrack was going to hold. We had the benefit of running as the last pair, the seventh pair down there,” Beckman said. “So, we did see some other cars put up some good numbers. They just made a fantastic tune-up call on the car.”
With the season progressing to near the midway point, Beckman is hopeful his team can use Friday’s victory as a turning point.
“So, we’re almost halfway in the year before we got it [his first win]. And I looked, I have a logbook and I keep track of all the runs that I make, and I keep track of my win-loss ratio. We had a negative win-loss ratio going into Maryland. We just turned the table on that last race. And the great thing is, like, if you’re runner-up, that’s three wins, one loss, right? But if you win the race, that’s 4-0. That really makes your stats look a lot better. I truly think we’ve turned the corner. We’ve got a car that can win everywhere we go. That doesn’t mean things are always going to fall our way. Because you can have the best car and not have good fortune out there. But I’m really confident in the fact that we’ve got such a good car again.”
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