Friday, April 1, 2016

Racer: Beckman leads Vegas Friday qualifiers

Jack Beckman raced to a track record performance to lead Funny Car qualifying Friday at the DENSO Spark Plugs NHRA Nationals. Steve Torrence (Top Fuel) and Jason Line (Pro Stock) also were qualifying leaders in their categories at the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series event.

Beckman, who is in position to earn his third No. 1 qualifying position of the season, powered his Infinite Hero Foundation Dodge Charger to a track record time of 3.916 seconds at 322.88 mph in the day's final qualifying session at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Beckman opened qualifying here in 11th after his car lost traction early in the run. Qualifying continues Saturday with sessions at 1 and 4 p.m. to set the starting lineups for Sunday's noon eliminations.

"If there's cloud cover tomorrow that run is definitely in jeopardy," Beckman said. "Whether it stands or not, when we struggled on the first run we were really aggressive. That makes it more difficult because we don't have any data from that run. It's gratifying as a driver to know the crew can come back after a run like that and still go to the No. 1 position."

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