BROWNSBURG, Indiana – Given how this season has gone, a nickname change may be in the cards for “Fast Jack” Beckman.
How does “Unstoppable Jack” Beckman sound? It has a pretty good ring to it.
In addition to the five national event wins he’s earned in the first 17 races, the California native picked up a cool $100,000 Sunday, capturing the Traxxas Nitro Shootout at Lucas Oil Raceway.
Beckman (4.051 seconds at 309.06 mph) defeated Robert Hight (4.138 seconds at 303.71 mph) to win his second career Traxxas Shootout, a special race-within-a-race.
He also helped Don Schumacher Racing double-up, as teammate Antron Brown won Saturday’s Traxxas Top Fuel Shootout for the first time in his career, defeating Doug Kalitta.
But there’s more.
Beckman is also the No. 1 Funny Car qualifier heading into Monday’s eliminations of the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals, making it four straight races that he’s gone into the final day of an event as the top qualifier.
In addition, Beckman is going for the sweep: All he needs to make it a perfect weekend is to win Monday’s race, which would be his first career triumph at Indy.
“When Jimmy (crew chief Jimmy Prock) came over, I knew we were going to do some special things this year,” Beckman said. “You do think about how great of a year it could be – and I’m not sure I could have imagined it could have been this good.
“It’s just been a little surreal.”
While it would be easy to do so, Beckman, who won the Funny Car championship in 2012, is not looking ahead to the upcoming six-race Countdown to the Championship, NHRA’s playoffs.
“We’re going to leave the track with a smile tonight, but there’s not going to be time for celebrating,” he said. “We’re coming back Monday and we really want that Wally (winner’s trophy).”
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