NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

Jack Beckman, who got his Countdown to the Championship account off to a good start by winning the playoff opener in Reading, got some more good news when he powered his Infinite Hero Dodge Charger Hellcat to the No. 1 spot Friday night under the lights with a 3.873. His speed of 334.07 mph broke the old track speed mark of 333.91 mph set by Robert Hight in April 2017.

“If you don’t run good on your first qualifying pass, you don’t get to run later in the second session you don’t get to see as many cars, you don’t have as cool of a racetrack so I was surprised at that e.t.,” said Beckman, whose first run of 6.004 was just the 14th quickest. “By the time we rolled into the water box we’d already been bumped out [of the field] so I asked if I could pedal it if it shook and they told me I could pedal once. We left, but the car kept wanting to come back to the inside but I was thinking so much about what I needed to right that I didn’t get much of a chance to enjoy the run. I didn’t think that run would hold because there were six more cars behind us that just saw what the car was capable of.’

Beckman’s purple Dodge raced to a 3.873 to take the No, 1 spot away from teammate Ron Capps, who earlier had recorded a 3.882 with the NAPA NightVision LED Lights Dodge. Capps got bumped back another spot by points leader Robert Hight, who ran a 3.878 on the final run of the evening.

Sixteen-time world champ John Force, who finished the first qualifying session in the No. 1 spot with a 3.904, improved to a 3.890 in the second session but nonetheless slid down three spots to the No. 4 position. 

Ten cars qualified in the three-second range on the opening day, the final being Jim Campbell, who clocked his first three-second pass since joining Jim Dunn Racing two years ago. Campbell ran a 3.988 in the Cattleman's Cut entry despite losing the blower belt near the finish line; the run is not a career best for Campbell as he recorded a 3.977 three years ago while driving Del Worsham’s car at the U.S. Nationals.

Terry Haddock sits on the bump spot with a 5.442 recorded in Q2 after sitting out the opening pass.

Shawn Langdon, the most recent winner on the tour with his victory two weeks ago in St. Louis, struggled on the opening day with the Global Electronic Technology Toyota, not making a full pass on either run and ending the day outside the field, the 17th of 18 cars to make an attempt Friday.