The team, led by crew chief Jimmy Prock with assistants John Medlen and Chris Cunningham, know how crucial this weekend's event at zMAX Dragway near Charlotte is in the hunt for a championship.
In 2015, Beckman entered the NHRA Carolina Nationals as the top seed but lost the lead to Kalitta Motorsports' Del Worsham, who went on to win the NHRA Funny Car championship.
"Relative to Del, when we left Indianapolis last year, we had a 17-round lead over them," Beckman said. "When we left Charlotte, they were leading us in the points.
"That's how important Charlotte can be. Nobody has a crystal ball and you can't look forward to the last race of the year at Pomona and say, 'Oh gosh, if we would have just done this different in Charlotte!' Because of that, I think the importance of every run is pretty obvious to every nitro competitor out there. You don't know how things are going to end up over the course of six races in the Countdown.
"You have to leave Charlotte with a high level of comfort."Beckman and the team are looking for redemption after an upsetting loss in the first round of eliminations of the U.S. Nationals over Labor Day weekend. The loss led to them dropping from third to fifth in points to start the Countdown.
"Boy, did we struggle in Indy," Beckman said.
"The frustrating thing about what happened in Indy, when we smoked the tires instantly in the first round, is that we didn't find a smoking gun. We know why the car did that, in the general sense. We don't know why the car did that, in a specific sense. We feel like we have a good direction to make it safer, but it's frustrating when you take a tune-up up there that should run a certain performance and it doesn't come close. Those are the ones that leave us scratching our heads.
"The silver lining is, we left Indy 15 rounds out of the lead and now, we're only three rounds behind."
Currently, Beckman sits in fifth in the NHRA points, only 60 points behind his Don Schumacher Racing teammate Ron Capps, the No. 1 seed.
"What we need right now is good execution every time we tow to the starting line - not just elimination runs. Those are worth 20 points apiece but each qualifying run is potentially a three-point gain. We have to treat every single run like it's the final round of the U.S. Nationals.
"We're going to put every effort we can to being the quickest car going down the track and making consistent runs every time we tow up there."
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