Consistent, plodding Beckman with Chandler’s Infinite Hero team get last laugh at Norwalk with third straight final, second event title
NORWALK, OH – Jack Beckman and Terry Chandler’s Infinite Hero Funny Car team doubled-up on Sunday by 
winning the NHRA Summit Nationals title then added a undesired starring role in the highlight video when their engine let loose in a fireball just passed the finish line.
“We were planning to bring out a new car anyway to test here tomorrow so we’ll just go back to the pit and strip whatever’s left off this one,” said co-crew chief Neal Strausbaugh who collaborated with Dean Antonelli and John Medlen to send Beckman down the track four times Sunday with less than stellar times in the ever-changing weather conditions that included 4.060, 4.078, 4.074 and 4.073 in the championship round.
Meanwhile Robert Hight of John Force Racing was dominating his opponents by consistently running one-tenth of a second quicker.
On paper, Beckman never seemed to have a chance to get around Hight. But in NHRA, you race on pavement and not paper.
The Infinite Hero Dodge Charger R/T Powered by Pennzoil muscled down the track while Hight blew smoke not far off the starting line. It is the third final round for Beckman in three weeks and his team’s second win during that run.
“I don’t know that we’re going to spend a whole lot of time soul searching about why we struggled here, because we left with the trophy,” said Beckman, who won for the third time at the track and the 26th of his career. “We should look at that stuff, but I think we’re going to dive in with that brand new race car and figure out what it needs.
“What happens when you start running consistent is the other cars know that they have to step up a little and I think that we just enjoyed a little bit of that for the last few weekends. We weren’t spectacular, but our car went to the finish line pretty consistently and folks knew they had to step up.
“When I say we weren’t spectacular, recognize I’m talking about a tenth of a second off of where we’d like to be. Which is not even a blink of an eye, but we need to pick that up. I have every confidence we will pick that up. If it doesn’t happen tomorrow we’re going to keep testing this thing. We want to win some more races and we want to win the championship, which means by Indy we have to have a combination that listens to us. But between now and then they’re giving a trophy away every weekend.”
The win was the 11th in 12 events for DSR and the 310th for DSR since 1998. Qualifying left the four DSR Dodge Charger R/Ts in the top half of the 16-car bracket and after each won their opening races the quartet battled in an intrasquad scrimmage in the second round where Beckman eliminated pole winner Matt Hagan (Mopar Express Lane) and Tommy Johnson Jr. (Make-A-Wish) defeated points leader Ron Capps (NAPA AUTO PARTS) to mark only the third time this season that Capps did not advance to the semifinals.
The outcome for DSR in Top Fuel, however, was not as glorious.
Leah Pritchett and the Papa John’s Pizza dragster was the only one of the DSR trio to advance to the semifinals where Pritchett lost to event pole winner and runner-up Doug Kalitta of Kalitta Motorsports. Her loss combined with points leader Steve Torrence winning his four title of the year to extent the distance behind him to 50 points.
World champions Antron Brown (Matco Tools) and Tony Schumacher (U.S. Army) lost in the second round.
“Very solid, it’s a good way to wrap up the swing,” Pritchett said of the conclusion of the June Swing that presented four races in four weeks.
“We’re constantly learning with our power. We’re confident we make some of the highest amount of power in comparison to our competition, which is a testament to the success in the cooler weather conditions. So our overall fuel setup still needs some proper fine-tuning, fine discovery. They’re still discovering how to harness that power in these hot conditions.”
