NHRA Funny Car driver Jack Beckman has now performed his services as an ordained minister at several NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series events, the latest of which were wed Saturday afternoon behind the Don Schumacher Racing hospitality units at zMAX Dragway.
“A lot of people want that highly religious, God-surrounding type of wedding, and I’m not that guy,” explained Beckman. “I married a couple in Reading two or three years ago and they asked me if I would do it. And I said, ‘Well, I can’t, I wouldn’t know how to do something like that.’ And they go, ‘Well, it’s easy.’ They gave me the website to go to. You log in, you become an ordained minister, and away you go.
“Well I think that was my sixth or seventh wedding now. I did one for friends of mine, a formal type of ceremony, indoors, everything you would think a wedding would be, minus the church. And then the majority of them have been in Don Schumacher hospitality, and it’s just folks who typically they’re their second marriage, or they’re older. They don’t necessarily want the fanfare. They’re hardcore drag race fans. They’re having a fun weekend, they think it’d be a wonderful way to incorporate the wedding.”
Beckman wed Mike and Helen Thompson Saturday in front of a small crowd in the zMAX Dragway pit area. For both Mike and Helen, a couple in their 50s who met at the speedway two years ago, it was their first marriage.
“This is the only one I’ve ever done that I never spoke to them until the day of the wedding,” said Beckman. “Every other one, some of them asked me a year in advance, and then we’ll communicate a couple times and I say, ‘OK, give me some background.’ I figure if I’m going to do this and it’s going to tie them together legally and hopefully emotionally, I want to be able to say some things about them. This one I literally had about 10 minutes of prep time. But as it turns out, it was a good 10 minutes. They met here at the race two years ago, and I love their vows. They read vows to each other that they had written, and they were really sincere and heartfelt. So a lot of people say, ah it’s a gimmick that people want to get married at a racetrack. Well, to each their own. This is what they decided to do for that, but they’re taking it very, very seriously.”
Something else Beckman is taking very seriously is the NHRA Funny Car championship, where he enters the countdown fourth in the points. While Ron Capps, Robert Hight and Matt Hagan have been making the headlines in the top three in points, Beckman hasn’t been flying far under the radar as he enters the countdown in fourth.
““I’ve got my share of time in the limelight here,” says Beckman. “I don’t do this for the limelight, but we’re not done having the spotlight shined on us, and that’s fine. You know, the NAPA car really has been the class of the field this year, they won a third of the races. They just saw a big lead evaporate. Dickie Venables and Hagan, they set the world on fire, they run huge numbers. Same with Jimmy Prock and Robert Hight. So I actually don’t mind kind of being in the shadows and making that surge at the last minute. I don’t think anybody’s overlooking us.”
by Samuel Reiman Wed, 2017-09-20 14:21
Competition Plus
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