Antron Brown, Jack Beckman, Greg Anderson and Andrew Hines took their respective class wins on Sunday at the NHRA Route 66 Nationals.
By Bobby Bennett Jul 10, 2016 at 4:55p ET
There's no place like home and, for team owner Don Schumacher, a native Chicagoan, Route 66 Raceway is where he was able to hang his latest double-up.
Thanks to winning efforts from Don Schumacher Racing drivers Antron Brown [Top Fuel] and Jack Beckman [Funny Car], Schumacher earned his third consecutive double-up weekend and 56th overall at the NHRA K&N Filters Route 66 Nationals outside of Chicago.
Also scoring wins were Greg Anderson (Pro Stock) and Andrew Hines (Pro Stock Motorcycle).
DSR's dominance has come from five different drivers since the NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals in Bristol, Tenn.
"To double up here at Chicago, my home track and my home for many, many years is just a phenomenal feeling," said Schumacher. "It has been awesome to have the family, friends and company people here. I cannot express just how wonderful this makes me feel."
Funny Car racer Beckman joined the list of winners by ending a dry spell dating back to last season by beating Ron Capps in the final with a 3.95 ET. Capps lost traction early in the run and lifted.
Beckman has had the car to beat since Sonoma last season but failed to turn the momentum into victories. He had four No. 1 qualifiers entering this weekend, and three final rounds but no wins.
"I thought we had so much momentum last year, and then we go to the Countdown and watch Del win the first two," Beckman explained. "We come back at Maple Grove and win that one and set the national record – and then we haven’t seen a winner’s circle since then. Even though we had been to three final rounds this year, we really didn’t have our car. We never made it more than 200 feet in any of those final rounds, and we were struggling. We set the national record this year, qualified No. 1 four times this year, but we just couldn’t put it together.
"We’d either run good in the heat and not in the cool track conditions or great on the hero conditions and couldn’t get it down the track in the heat. We just found some things with the car."
Top Fuel racer Brown vaulted to his fourth win of the season by outrunning J.R. Todd in the final round with a 3.77 ET to a 3.79. The victory marked Brown’s 41st win in Top Fuel.
“We found new things that are making it better. We are on to something, and we are just going to keep improving upon that. Our deal is we try to win every race we go to. We compete at a high level, and our main goal is to come into a race and go out there and be efficient, and that means getting every drop out of this lemon every time.
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