When veteran NHRA nitro Funny Car driver Jack Beckham left the sport after the 2020 season, he didn’t see himself making a return to action – especially not in 2024 and as the replacement driver for 16-time champion John Force.
However, that’s exactly the reality he was living in Sunday, and he capped the day by winning the Midwest Nationals in Force’s Peak Antifreeze and Coolant Chevrolet Camaro SS at World Wide Technology Raceway near St. Louis. In the finals, Beckman clocked a 3.856-second elapsed time at 315.86 mph to defeat Ron Capps’ 3.882, 329.42.
“I went up there for first round and I missed the tree on both of our qualifying runs, and I’m not good as Ron Capps where he can just lay off the lights in qualifying and he’s right there in eliminations,” Beckman said. “I need the practice. I’ve always needed the practice, and I’m still getting up to speed. And I was late both flights [of qualifying], and that’s the kind of stuff that you got to compartmentalize, not let it get in your head. And I got in the car this morning and I was just … that self-talk thing was a little bit more of the negative stuff than I like to carry up there. And then we had a fire with the pair in front of us and a long delay. A couple of the crew guys ducked under the body, and we just sat there and talked for 15 minutes.
“And while a lot of people might in that timeframe get more worked up and less confident, it just made me feel more at ease. And we went out there and we got the job done. We had to race J.R. Todd, and I knew for them if they lost first round of the day, that was probably it for their Countdown. Not that you would try harder – we’re all trying as hard as we can – but I knew that was a capable team. That was a big hurdle right out of the gate there. And the guys just kept making the right call. We had cracked the body first round, and the guys deemed it better to bring a backup body out than to try to patch that one and have to fix it again in the shop. And you don’t even miss a beat on that. When you have all the confidence in your crew that whatever they have to do, whatever spare parts have to go on that car, we can drag that thing right back up there and it’s going to go right down the racetrack.”
Following his win over Todd, Beckman mowed down Daniel Wilkerson, points leader and his JFR teammate Austin Prock, then Capps.
“We lost lane choice for the semifinals, and that’s a tough one because the right lane was a bit finicky here for a lot of the cars this weekend,” Beckman said. “And we went right down there, and that gave me a lot more confidence going into the final round because Capps had lane choice by a hundredth there and we got it done. We actually made a monster lap in the final round. That was fantastic to see our guys turn the screws up and get more aggressive with it because that comes from confidence. When you’re racing from a point of defense in this, you back the car off. When you have a lot of confidence in the parts and the equipment and the tune up, you just lean on it, and we leaned on it.”
Beckman, who won the 2012 Funny Car championship, was named as the replacement driver for John Force on July 30. Force continues to recover from a traumatic brain injury he suffered in a June 23 racing crash near Richmond, Va.
By NHRA rules, when a driver is unable to compete, the race team may employ a substitute who can earn points for the original driver in a maximum of eight tour events. That meant that when Beckman rolled to the starting line for qualifying in Brainerd, Minn., on Aug. 16, he was continuing Force’s pursuit of a 17th title.
“It’s potential pressure and it’s a complete honor,” Beckman said about replacing Force. “When NHRA did their 2001 50th anniversary and they named the top 50 drivers of all time, you can’t pick the greatest because there’s five of them that are the greatest. But at the Finals at Pomona, they announced it was No. 3 Don Prudhomme, No. 2 John Force, No. 1 Don Garlits. Force was giving his speech, and he didn’t do this in an arrogant way at all, but he just said, ‘Maybe I’ll be the No. 1 drag racer in the second 50 years of NHRA.’ I thought to myself, ‘That guy’s done everything. He was voted the second-greatest drag racer in history at that time, and the guy drove and won for 23 more years and only a bad accident took him out of the cockpit.’ And we may not have seen the last of him yet. He is, by all metrics, the greatest of all time. He’s also a friend of mine.”
And Force is Force – there’s nobody else like him.
“He’s John Force. He’s his own personality. I always said they broke the mold. They did. There was no mold for John Force,” Beckman said. “I got to see him (Sept. 24), and he looks like John Force, and he talks like John Force, and we got to sit in the shop for a while and visit, and that’s the first time I’ve seen him since the accident and it felt good. I got to hug him. John’s not a big hugger. I’m a big hugger. We’re going to work on that.
“Somebody also had asked me before I got in the car, ‘If we win the championship for John this year, will that championship have an asterisk on it?’ At the time, I said, ‘That’s for each individual to decide for themselves.’ And I thought about that some more. Of course, it should have an asterisk on. It should. It’s unprecedented. Nobody’s ever raced eight races for points for another driver. It’s never happened because the policy didn’t go into effect until January this year. But I am absolutely fine with having an asterisk next to John Force’s 17th title out there.”
Beckman knows that writing that fairytale ending will not be easy.
“We’ve got Mount Austin [points leader Austin Prock] and Jimmy [Prock] that we need to continue to try to close that gap on, and they’ve been – look, when you’re chasing a car that’s struggling, it’s easy to see that point that you might pass them,” Beckman said. “When you’re chasing the best car out there and they just aren’t making any mistakes, man, does that become tough. And I think my count is 14 round wins in a row for that team. We just got four.
“Now, our goal is to continue that streak at Dallas. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the championship. We got to win for John Force. I’d like to go do it again, and also for me. From a good, selfish standpoint, it’s nice to know you can win again. Because the team can win. That car is capable of winning. I was the one that hadn’t. Now we checked that box off, and I think we’ll all roll into Dallas with maybe a little more pep in our step.”
Beckman moved into second in points and with three races left on the schedule, he trails Prock by 105 points.
The St. Louis win was Beckman’s 34th nitro Funny Car Wally, and he knew it wouldn’t be easy to return to the winner’s circle when he answered the call to replace Force.
“So, honest to God, I didn’t know what it was going to feel like to get strapped in the car for the first time. That’s going to sound silly. And the driving the car, when I say it wasn’t that big of a deal, it’s still a big deal,” he said. “But let me digress. For 14 years when I was driving a nitro Funny Car full time, when I was out of the car in between races or in the offseason, I was always practicing driving a Funny Car. If I was pushing my lawnmower, I was pulling on the brake. I was looking down track. For three years and nine months, I never thought about driving a Funny Car, because it would’ve been depressing because I didn’t have a Funny Car to drive. I didn’t practice. I put it out of my head. I started remembering how to fix elevators again, because that had been 22 years since I’d done that.
“And when I got the call, I’m like, ‘Okay.’ So, I had to fly back to Indy to get fitted in the car, and they put me in the car, put a helmet on, I sat down and I’m like, ‘I hate this. I hate this.’ That being said, for DSR, when we’d fly back there when the next season started [and] if you got a new chassis and they’re going to fit you in there. The first time in there getting that seat insert put in, you feel like everything squished you in there, that you got five feet taller. It just doesn’t feel right. And then if you’re off for three weeks and you get back in the car, you feel too tight. But after four runs in the car, you feel like this is where I’m supposed to be. But I hated the way it felt. When I got to Norwalk and they strapped me in, in the pits on jackstands, nobody in the car, we’re not even going to start the car at this point, I hated the way it felt and I thought, ‘We’ve already ordered T-shirts and hero codes. This sucks.’ It doesn’t suck anymore, I’ll tell you that.”
It was all part of an adjustment for Beckman.
“So, the first run at Norwalk, which we went out there for two reasons,” Beckman said. “John was contracted to go to the Night Under Fire, and I didn’t have a Funny Car license. I had to renew my license. So, the first run there – and believe me when I flew back for the fitting, I went over all the warm-up procedures, I went over all the run procedures – I wanted to make sure I was confident and comfortable with doing everything the right way in the car. I launched, and the parachutes fell out at 140 feet. And I had to tell the crew, ‘You guys know I didn’t hit those. You know. I swear to God, I didn’t pull the chutes.’ But it made it spin the tires. I’m like, ‘Thanks, God. I owe you one.’ It was nice to only get a 250-foot run. And then from that point on, the confidence just started coming back, the comfort level went up, and I think you can see here we’re doing pretty good right now. I’m feeling pretty confident and comfortable.”
No matter what happens after the 2024 season, Beckman is polishing his already-impressive resume.
“I left the trophy outside. That would be my application and resume for that deal. I am tickled. Everybody’s got an ego. I think if you know me, you know I’m outgoing, I can be sarcastic,” he said. “I don’t have a big ego. I wish I had a big ego. I’d be a better Funny Car driver, honest to God. Because when you think that way like your you-know-what doesn’t stink, you’re usually better at doing stuff like this. I’m one of those normal people that doubts myself a bunch, but I must have done something right for the last 14 years that Robert Hight called and said, ‘John and I talked. We want you to drive our Funny Car.’
“So, I don’t know that it would be necessary to say something to other people, but out of sight is out of mind in this sport, and there’s a lot of good drivers on the sideline. I don’t know what next year holds. I don’t know if John wants to get back in the car. I don’t know if Robert wants to get back in the car. I’m going to enjoy the hell out of the rest of this season, though, because if this is all I get is these eight races and we’ve already won for John Force and we are now one-two in the points in the JFR Camaros here, man, I thought, ‘I got all my dreams times 10 with my 14-year career with Don Schumacher. This is Jack 2.0 getting a chance to come back and do it again with a top-flight team and win races.’
“So, I’m going to be doing the best I can to enjoy the moment. I will go back and fix elevators Tuesday. I will have the biggest damn smile on my face, I can guarantee that.”
