No. 4 Beckman sets sight on moving up in Mello Yello points, winning last two titles of the year with Infinite Hero Dodge  

BROWNSBURG, IN – Jack Beckman isn’t ready to throw in the towel on winning his second world championship in the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series.

But some thought he could have done that before the 2017 season began.

The 2012 Funny Car world champion for Don Schumacher Racing started this season with only one remaining crewmember and started the campaign with a new crew chief combination of Dean Antonelli, John Medlen and Neal Strausbaugh leading Terry and Doug Chandler’s Infinite Hero Dodge Charger R/T team.

Although it is a longshot that Beckman can rally from being ranked fourth and 186 points out of first place heading to Las Vegas for this weekend’s NHRA Nationals and the next-to-last event of the season, it is impressive that the Infinite Hero team is No. 4 with two event titles this year.

“Coming down the stretch I don’t know if the handicappers at the being of the year would have had us going to Vegas less than one round (15 points) out of third place,” said Beckman, who won at Las Vegas in 2006. “We’ve been a contender at every Mello Yello race this year.”

The Infinite Hero Dodge and Beckman were the No. 1 qualifiers at both Las Vegas events last year but lost in the second round each time.

With only two events remaining in the six-race Countdown to the Championship playoff, Beckman, who also won the 2003 NHRA Super Comp world championship as an amateur, knows has a monumental hill to climb.

“We all know anything is possible when you pour nitro into the fuel tanks of these cars. We’ll be aggressive with our approach to Vegas and then at the Finals at Pomona.”

For Beckman to have any chance at the world title, he knows that he can’t control the fate of those he’s chasing unless he faces them during Sunday eliminations. And he knows he has to win the last two titles of the year.

“For our Infinite Hero team, it’s all about the trophies right now. I just want to go win the last two Wallys of the year. If than happens we will have done everything we could.

“Our goal is getting our picture taken with those two Wally trophies at the end of the day.”

Capps takes new perspective to Vegas as he helps city heal, won’t lose focus on keeping points lead en route to defending title

LAS VEGAS – Ron Capps and the NAPA AUTO PARTS Funny Car team with crew chief Rahn Tobler have been atop the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series standings after 16 of the last 17 events.

The reigning NHRA Funny Car world champion will be at the top again when the fourth of six events in the NHRA Countdown to the Championship playoff opens Friday with the NHRA Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

What matters most, however, is being No. 1 in two weeks when the season ends at Pomona, Calif., not far from his home outside of San Diego.

Capps, who has won a career-best eight NHRA titles this season through 22 races, considers three tracks as his “home track,” one of which is at Las Vegas where he has raced since it opened in 2000 but also because of the time he spends there with his brother Jon Capps, a part-time Funny Car racer.

“We’re there so often for holidays and hanging out with Jon and his family. It seems like another home.”

Those are a couple reasons why this visit will mean so much to him, and not just because he’s in a championship battle or that he’s won there five times.

The emotional visit will be because of Oct. 1, when 58 concert attendees were murdered by a lunatic.

“That hit home,” he said. “I’ve been to so many events in Vegas and having Jon and his family there really made it hit harder. It was senseless.

“We’ve been looking forward to getting back there and in our own way maybe helping Las Vegas heal a little more. That is such a resilient town.”

He said that tragedy and then being able to spend time last weekend with his family in Austin, Texas, as guests of U.S.A. Compression for the Formula 1 race has altered his perspective but understands his focus has to be on the racetrack this weekend where he will be joined family and friends.

Capps, who owns 58 NHRA nitro titles, will start racing Friday with a 24-point lead over John Force Racing’s Robert Hight, who beat Capps in the final round of the last event two weeks ago near Dallas. Each has won twice in the first four Countdown events.

This weekend, like 22 of the previous 23 events in the Mello Yello Series, the most points a driver can earn with a perfect weekend is 130; at the Pomona finale where NHRA upped the points by 150 percent, 191 can be earned.

No Funny Car driver can leave Las Vegas with a 192-point lead to clinch a championship.

“We’ve had a better Countdown than a year ago when we didn’t win a trophy,” Capps said. “This year we’ve won twice but so has Robert. I’m confident on what Tobler and the NAPA AutoCare Centers crew will give me for these last two races.

“We at least need to keep our lead over Robert at Vegas, but we really need to add to it so we can have a better cushion going to Pomona with the new points system at the Finals.”

Johnson, Chandlers’ Make-A-Wish Dodge Charger R/T team return to Las Vegas to try to repeat their spring win at The Strip

– With the 2017 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing series concluding in less than a month, Tommy Johnson Jr. and Terry and Doug Chandler’s Make-A-Wish Funny Car team set their focus on finishing the season strong.

“We’ve struggled a little bit lately and hopefully this is where we can turn the corner,” said Johnson who currently is seventh in the NHRA points standings. He finished third in both 2014 and 2015 and was second in 2016.

Johnson and the Make-A-Wish team led by crew chief John Collins with assistant Rip Reynolds, stayed very consistent throughout the regular NHRA season, advancing to four of five final rounds during July and August.

Their Countdown to the Championship playoff efforts have been less than stellar with only two quarterfinal appearances.

“We won our only race so far this year in Vegas in the spring so I’m looking forward to getting back there and getting back on track.”

Johnson’s win in Funny Car in April was Don Schumacher Racing’s 299th and it was followed that weekend by Top Fuel teammate Antron Brown earning DSR its 300th.

This weekend’s 17th annual NHRA Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway is the penultimate event of the 2017 season.

“We’re going to do some testing on Monday at Vegas and begin working toward next year’s program.

“Hopefully at the same time, we can get our program back on track and go some rounds. We’d love nothing more than to go out with two wins at the end of the season.”

Las Vegas win a must for Pritchett to stay in championship fight, big week with Pennzoil at SEMA show before Pomona finale

– Leah Pritchett heads to Las Vegas this week with Don Schumacher Racing’s Pennzoil Top Fuel dragster team intent on a miraculous end to her first full-time professional season and is not ruling out jumping back into the championship hunt.

The 29-year-old Southern California native living near Indianapolis understands that the NHRA Countdown to the Championship hasn’t gone the way she and crew chief Todd Okuhara with assistant Joe Barlam had planned. She will be ranked No. 5 when the NHRA Nationals opens Friday at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

When the Countdown playoff began on Sept. 15, she was seeded third and 30 out of the points lead after being atop the Mello Yello Series points standings for the first five months of the season. When the Las Vegas race begins she will be 180 points out of the lead and a longshot to leave the season-finale two weeks later in Pomona, Calif., that was her home track when growing up in nearby Redlands, with the championship.

Despite a disappointing four races to start the Countdown, her Pennzoil/Papa John’s Pizza/FireAde team had an incredible 18-race regular season when they won four titles in six final rounds, earned six poles and reset the world elapsed time record twice.

“If you would have told us all the accomplishments we would have this year before we opened the season at Pomona (in February) we would have said, ‘sign us up.’ It’s been amazing. But we are competitors and while we are excited about that, we wouldn’t be the racers we are if we didn’t think we could go for more. We want more because we know we can do more.

“These last two races are important on multiple levels,” said Pritchett, who has five career wins. “For our team, for our morale, going through all these highs and lows together, I couldn’t ask for anything more.”

Points leader Steve Torrence, who has won a series-best eight times, leads Brittany Force by 57 points and Doug Kalitta by 76. Pritchett’s DSR teammate Antron Brown, the two-time reigning world champ, is fourth (105 behind out of first) and Pritchett is 180 out of the lead.

“This season has been a learning season, specifically what it takes to maintain a championship-caliber level, and a win or two would create even more momentum. We have the mentality of nothing to lose and everything to gain.”

Pritchett and other DSR drivers will have an extended stay in Las Vegas when they participate in the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) show at the Las Vegas Convention Center at which she and DSR teammate Matt Hagan will co-star at the massive Pennzoil display.

The event is the premier automotive specialty products trade event in the world, and Pritchett recalls when she attended her first.

“I remember walking up to the Pennzoil booth 10 years ago as a small-time, grassroots racer and introduced myself and hoped one day I’d have Pennzoil as a partner,” she said. “Now I will be one of the featured drivers at the Pennzoil display that will be the largest stage at SEMA.

“That will be very humbling and a testament to what it means to be a driver for Don Schumacher Racing.”

Hagan plans to finish season with back-to-back wins with Pennzoil team starting this weekend near Las Vegas

– Matt Hagan has plans to finish the 2017 NHRA Mello Yello season the way they started – by winning.

The Pennzoil/Mopar team led by crew chief Dickie Venables and assistant Michael Knudsen opened the season in February by scoring back-to-back event titles. But since the six-race Çountdown to the Championship playoff kicked off, the team has been unable to reach the final round.

Hagan hopes to change that this weekend at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the penultimate event of the 2017 season.

“It’s all about winning races now,” Hagan said. “That’s all we can do. Unfortunately, we haven’t shown what we’re capable of in the Countdown and we’ve fallen pretty far down in the points standings so we just have to go out and turn on win lights.

“For these guys, it’s important we get another win under us. The offseason is long, man. You want to end it on a high note to carry you through till we can get out here and try it again.”

Hagan has three event titles and one runner-up this season. In the spring race at Las Vegas, the team Powered by Pennzoil reached the quarterfinal round. The two-time Funny Car champion is seeking his first career win at the Vegas facility.

“This is not the time of year you want to have your struggles and it’s unfortunate that it worked out that way for us. We stayed after Dallas and tested and we’re continuing to work on it. We’re definitely not giving up, we still have two races we have to go out and win and that’s what we’re going to do.”