With the first of 24 NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series national events of 2008 in
the books, "Fast" Jack Beckman is poised for an improved performance of the
Valvoline/Mail Terminal Services Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car he drives for Don
Schumacher Racing in this weekend's second national event of the
year.
Beckman advanced to the quarterfinals at the season-opener in
Pomona, Calif., and left tied in fifth place in the point standings with three
other drivers. Not a bad way to start off a season, despite experiencing some
new-car glitches. This weekend's NHRA Nationals at Firebird Raceway, just
outside of Phoenix, should see a revitalized team effort.
"We're a top-10
team right now," said Beckman, who still holds the national speed record of
333.66 mph he set in 2006. "We didn't run as well as we would have liked to have
run in Pomona, which is the bad news. The great news is that before the
Valvoline/MTS guys loaded the car to leave we found what the problem was in that
second round. We had a fuel control valve that was sticking. We could make a
good, hard, fast run and get good data on the computer, but in the next run it
would go out and drop a cylinder, and the data wouldn't match. We
trouble-shooted that with the help of the other DSR crew chiefs and the
Valvoline/MTS guys narrowed it down.