Unfortunately, they came up just five-thousandths of a second short during the third round of qualifying at Brainerd International Raceway at the 35th annual NHRA Nationals in northern Minnesota.
Possibly the most impressive part of Beckman's 3.859-second lap at 308.85 mph was that the car didn't make a full pass down the racetrack.
"We don't want to push it too hard so what happens when you're that quick early, we hit our REV limiter sooner and it takes a bunch of timing out. The motor is not happy and it drops a cylinder and eats up the blower belt. But otherwise, oh my gosh, what that could have been."
After scattered showers throughout the afternoon, the third and fourth sessions were delayed on Saturday.
"The one thing that is predictable about Brainerd is that nothing is predictable about Brainerd. It's that one track that we go to in August and it's either going to be 100 degrees or it's going to be crisp cool air.
"Then you get these rain showers that are in and out all day long. It's very odd, the way we get into our zone and go up there, and you have to turn the car right around and go back to the pits because there's a rain delay.
"But it's the same for everybody. Sometimes, it's in the middle of the session sometimes it's at the end of the session.
"We were on an absolutely monster pass third qualifying run and it dropped a cylinder and the blower belt came off and we coasted 170 feet and almost ran our career best ET (elapsed time). The thing really wanted to lay down something close to the national record.
"Then our teammate goes out and gets the national record on Q4 and we missed the tune up a little bit," Beckman said of his Don Schumacher Racing teammate Matt Hagan who reset the national record at 3.822.
"We're No. 4 so we've got lane choice," Beckman said. He will race Cruz Pedregon on Sunday in opening round of eliminations.
"It's probably going to be different conditions tomorrow. It's not going to be warm but it'll be sunnier than it was today. The racetrack will have some more heat in it and I think we have pretty good data to ran in it. I'm really looking forward to racing this."
BRAINERD FUNNY CAR
No. 1 qualifier: Matt Hagan (Don Schumacher Racing) 3.822 sec.-world record, 333.02 mph-track record
JACK BECKMAN, Infinite Hero Foundation Dodge Charger R/T
Qualified: No. 4
SUNDAY CHAMPIONSHIP ELIMINATIONS
First round: Cruz Pedregon
QUALIFYING
FRIDAY: 3.917 sec., 326.24 mph, (Session 1); 3.901, 295.14 (Session 2)
SATURDAY: 3.859, 308.85 mph, (Session 3); 9.001, 63.29 (Session 4)
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