This weekend, Beckman and the crew struggled during qualifying as they only made one clean pass down the racetrack at the fifth annual AAA Insurance NHRA Midwest Nationals.
However, the one clean pass was good enough for the No. 2 qualifying position.
"If you look at the Infinite Hero team at the end of qualifying, you'll see that we qualified No. 2 and that doesn't tell the whole story," Beckman said.
"If you look at the details, you'll see we smoked the tires three out of four times and that doesn't tell the whole story."
During the opening round of qualifying on Friday, Beckman went into tire smoke but then during second session, he clocked a 3.907-second pass at 325.22 mph. He also picked up two bonus points in the session as he was second best of the round.
Unfortunately, on Saturday there was more tire smoke for the Infinite Hero Foundation team as they fought to go down the hot, sticky track in summer-like conditions during the first weekend of fall.
Beckman and his crew chief, Jimmy Prock with assistants John Medlen and Chris Cunningham, will face Dale Creasy Jr. on Sunday for the first round of eliminations.
"Qualifying No. 2 gives you a pretty decent first round match-up. We can probably afford to go up there and do a little bit of experimenting but we also need to try and run a mid-3.90," Beckman said.
"We'll run very well when the car responds to all of our changes. With the recent revisions we've made in the bellhousing, we need data. So the fact that we smoked the tires on three of the four runs doesn't mean we're lost. It means we're trying different things and seeing what the car likes there."
Aside from the NHRA event Wally trophy, Beckman and his team are looking to advance in the NHRA Mello Yello points standings as they compete for the Countdown to the Championship playoffs.
When entering the race weekend, the Infinite Hero Foundation Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car team was eighth in points. A good race weekend could place them in a better positon for the NHRA Championship title.
"2012 was the last time I won St. Louis and that year ended for me about as perfect as a year could end for a driver," Beckman said, referring to his 2012 Funny Car world championship.
"At this point, every single round is huge. The cars that are top three and four in points, they're not going out first early. We can't rely on them stumbling. We have to go deep every single race day from here on out."
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| Photo Credit: Auto Imagery |
