Jack Beckman leads off the the pre-race report for DSR
Madison, IL – There is no better time than this weekend for history to repeat itself for Jack Beckman and the Valvoline MaxLife/MTS 
Funny Car team.
The Don Schumacher Racing team is headed to St. Louis for the AAA Insurance Midwest Nationals at Gateway Motorsports Park where its march to the 2012 NHRA Funny Car world championship picked up a torrid pace.
A year ago at Gateway, Beckman with crew chief Todd Smith and assistant Terry Snyder earned the No. 1 qualifying spot and went on to win the event title. A week later, they went to Maple Grove Raceway at Reading, Pa., and earned a 20-point bonus for setting the NHRA elapsed time record en route to winning another pole and event title.
When they arrived at Gateway last year, the team was third in points and when they left were second before taking the championship lead after Reading. It was a lead they never relinquished.
Despite a semifinal finish Sunday at the Texas Motorplex near Dallas, Beckman dropped one spot to fifth in the standings but more importantly knocked 20 points off what he trails DSR teammate and points leader Matt Hagan.
“I don’t care where we are in the standings, I just care where we are in points relative to first place,” Beckman said. “That’s what we’re racing for; we’re not racing for second or third.”
Texas was Beckman’s second semifinals finish in two Countdown events.
The 76-point gap remains substantial.
“The points can change rapidly, and it’s bunched up again at the top.
“We can’t afford to keep trading blows with Hagan and the cars near the top. We have to close the gap, which means we have to consistently outlast them. We’ve had a good start to the Countdown but four (round) wins in two events isn’t going to be enough.”
Each round win is worth 20 points, and Beckman believes he will need a total of 15 in the 24 Countdown rounds.
“It will probably take us a total of 15 round wins and that means we’ll need at least one (event) win.”
Beckman and the Valvoline/MTS team took a big step toward keeping their hopes of defending their championship alive when they eliminated Hagan in the second round of eliminations near Dallas last week. Beckman also beat Hagan in the final round at Gateway a year ago.
“That was a 40-point swing after we beat Hagan. It was unfortunate for us to have the door open for us and to not gain more points.”
– The six-race Countdown to the Championship reaches its halfway point this weekend at the AAA Insurance NHRA Midwest Nationals near St. Louis and Spencer Massey is satisfied with how the Battery Extender Powered by Schumacher team has performed thus far.
– The last thing Ron Capps wanted to happen on Sunday to his NAPA Shocks & Struts Funny Car team happened at the Texas Motorplex near Dallas.
After a solid No. 4 qualifying effort in Don Schumacher Racing’s NAP Dodge Charger R/T, Capps was upset in the opening round that prevented him from getting closer to teammate and points leader Matt Hagan.
He went from arriving at Dallas second in points and trailing Hagan by 82 points, to dropping to sixth and falling 102 behind his teammate. It could have been worse had Hagan not lost in the second round, but it could have been much better had Capps advanced a few rounds.
“We lost a great opportunity to get closer to Matt,” Hagan said. “But we can’t dwell on that. We know we have a lot of work to do and we have to win more rounds that Matt.”
And that has to start this weekend in the AAA Insurance Midwest Nationals at Gateway Motorsports Park near St. Louis, which is the third stop in the six-race NHRA Countdown to the Championship playoff.
Capps is using what happened a year ago to another teammate, Jack Beckman, who arrived at St. Louis third in points and 97 behind Capps when he was first in points. Beckman ended up winning the world championship by two points over Capps.
“We’re going to St. Louis in a position similar that Jack was in and we all know how that turned out,” Capps said.
“I’ve said before I’d rather be the hunter than the hunted and now we really have our work cut out for us.”
The Mopar/Rocky Boots team has a 51-point lead, more than two rounds of racing, over No. 2-ranked Cruz Pedregon after two of six events in the Countdown to the Championship.
After winning two of this year’s first seven events and advancing to the championship round in another, the Toyota/Matco Tools team has struggled to regain its championship form and is eager to return to the track where a year ago it was the No. 1 qualifier en route to winning of its six titles of the year.
“Our main focus is going to St. Louis in attack mode and leave with the title,” said Brown, who remained near Dallas Monday and made three successful test runs after he lost in Sunday’s second round of championship eliminations.
“St. Louis has always been a great race for us. We love going there and seeing what else (owner) Curtis Francois has done to make Gateway an even better facility.
“We’re amped up. We ran well there last year and hopefully we can start to light it up and end the year like we started.”
Through the first two of six events in the NHRA Countdown to the Championship playoff, Brown didn’t qualify for the opener two weeks ago near Charlotte and could only muster a No. 14-spot for Sunday’s eliminations at the Texas Motorplex.
“This year has been a little rough on our Toyota/Matco Tools team. It hasn’t been something we’re used to have happen to us,” he said of losing in the opening round at eight of the past 13 events and not qualifying for another during that span.
“One thing that makes me so proud of this team is that we still have so much fight in us. We’re not letting what’s happened kick us in the butt. We’re taking it round by round, race by race.
“We’ll see where we end up at the end of the year and whatever happens we’ll know we gave it everything we had and then some. We’ll never throw in the towel, just keep giving it all we’ve got.”
Brown knows he and his team face a daunting task, but after Gateway the Mello Yello Series heads to Maple Grove Raceway at Reading, Pa., where last year he earned 20 bonus points for setting an NHRA elapsed time record en route to making the championship round.
“We know we’re 150 points out of the lead, but there are a lot of races left. We’re starting to see some things come around and going in the direction we want to go.”
