{"id":65459,"date":"2019-09-26T12:36:44","date_gmt":"2019-09-26T19:36:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=65459"},"modified":"2019-09-26T12:36:59","modified_gmt":"2019-09-26T19:36:59","slug":"beckman-has-force-hight-in-his-funny-car-mirrors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/beckman-has-force-hight-in-his-funny-car-mirrors\/","title":{"rendered":"Beckman Has Force, Hight in His Funny Car Mirrors"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Jack Beckman and his Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) crew led by Dean Antonelli and John Medlen have had a bit more than a week to savor their most recent Funny Car win, which came more than a year after their previous visit to the NHRA Mello Yello Winner\u2019s Circle. Their driver almost wishes the schedule continued this past weekend, but he\u2019ll take that extra time off. \u201cI was glad to get home, spend time with my family and celebrate the win with many of our friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

The driver of Doug Chandler\u2019s Infinite Hero Foundation Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat flopper won the Countdown to the Championship starter at Reading nearly two weeks ago, elevating himself to the top of the standings with five more races that will determine a season-long champion. Beckman is a two-time winner at the World Wide Technology Raceway at this weekend\u2019s Gateway race and has twice finished as runner-up.<\/p>\n

He knows his lead is tenuous and he knows who\u2019s chasing him relentlessly. That would be the 16-time NHRA Funny Car champion John Force, driver of the John Force Racing PEAK Chevrolet Camaro SS. Only 19 points behind Beckman, Force has been on a tear lately, driving with equal determination as he had when an unsuccessful youngster more than 30 years ago.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Force is hungry and that\u2019s scary for Beckman and for his son-in-law and company president Robert Hight, who lies 24 points behind the leader. Still, with Beckman in the driver\u2019s seat, \u201cI think we made an absolute statement at Maple Grove: we are a championship-contending team,\u201d Beckman reminded. \u201cI\u2019ve said that all year; it\u2019s one thing to believe you have a shot at the championship, but it\u2019s an entirely different thing to stand there with your team holding the trophy at the end of the day.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the job of Force, Hight, Beckman\u2019s teammates Ron Capps, Tommy Johnson Jr. and Matt Hagan, reigning titleholder J.R. Todd in Kalitta Motorsports\u2019 Toyota Camry, the Ford Shelby Mustangs of single-car entrants Bob Tasca III and Tim Wilkerson, together with Kalitta\u2019s Shawn Langdon to stop Beckman from taking his second national title.<\/p>\n

Now that Force has, once again hit his stride, a 17th NHRA Funny Car championship doesn\u2019t seem that much of a stretch. His Brian Corradi and Daniel Hood-tuned Camaro SS has been consistent throughout this long season, and it was on the money for all but the crucial , final run down the 1,000-foot dragstrip at Mohnton, Penn. \u201cWe had a good race day in Reading. Went to the final but Beckman, with the .028 light, I can\u2019t beat that on my best day,\u201d Force conceded.<\/p>\n

Force makes his 781st career race day start at this weekend\u2019s AAA Insurance Midwest Nationals, owning two wins in four final rounds, along with eight semifinal results and three No. 1 qualifiers. \u201cWell, we\u2019re all headed to St. Louis and I\u2019m ready to get there. We\u2019re all in the Countdown. Robert and I are back to back in the points. Brittany is No. 2 and the Prock kid is seventh. The championship is coming fast and it would be nice to win another one,\u201d Force said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hight won this race last year and already has five wins to his credit, all coming during the 18-race \u201cregular\u201d season. Hight owns three straight No. 1 qualifiers on the Gateway track; his victory in last year\u2019s AAA Insurance NHRA Midwest Nationals came against Wilkerson, an anomaly who owns, tunes and drives his Funny Car. Hight did it as an explosion ripped his winning car to pieces. \u201cWe didn\u2019t get to celebrate,\u201d Hight recalls. \u201cI had to go to the hospital so there was no winner\u2019s circle. We\u2019re going to change that this year; we\u2019ll be defending our win and looking to get a proper winner\u2019s circle, the whole team together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hight also runs the risk of the \u201cCourtney\u201d factor. Like his sister-in-law, Hight had a truly memorable regular season in Funny Car, but his first Countdown race was less than satisfactory when he smoked the tires in the second round and failed to complete the competition. That\u2019s what felled Courtney Force in 2018; Hight is hoping he can avoid those difficulties, that his Jimmy Prock and Chris Cunningham-led team can find the magic that brought them the 2017 Funny Car title again this year.<\/p>\n

It\u2019ll be hot in the reflection of St. Louis\u2019 arch but rain threats for this weekend have subsided. That will allow the 18 entered Funny Car contingent to run and run hard as they vie for this single-race Winner\u2019s Circle, even as the 10 Countdown competitors stake their chances for a season-long championship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jack Beckman and his Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) crew led by Dean Antonelli and John Medlen have had a bit more than a week to savor their most recent Funny Car win, which came more than a year after their previous visit to the NHRA Mello Yello Winner\u2019s Circle.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":65462,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17,3470,3399],"tags":[5614,7157,7069,5945,38,7158,41,7,7156],"class_list":["post-65459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guest-column","category-news","category-nhra","tag-anne-proffit","tag-antonelli","tag-beckman","tag-force","tag-funny-car","tag-medlen","tag-news","tag-nhra","tag-schumacher"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Robert-Hight-Indy-min-e1569526591767.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-h1N","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65459"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65464,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65459\/revisions\/65464"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}