Beckman is No. 13 after three of five qualifying tries at U.S. Nats

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
2009 NHRA FULL THROTTLE DRAG RACING SERIES
Round 18 of 24
55th annual U.S. Nationals
Raceway Park at Indianapolis
Sept. 4-7, 2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact; Judy Stropus, 203-438-0501; cell 203-243-2438;
jstropus@earthlink.net

BECKMAN IS NO. 13 AFTER THREE OF FIVE QUALIFYING TRIES AT U.S. NATS

INDIANAPOLIS (Sept. 5, 2009) - "Fast" Jack Beckman and the Valvoline/Mail
Terminal Services team suffered two setbacks during qualifying for the 55th
annual U.S. Nationals at Raceway Park at Indianapolis, which dropped him to
No. 13. 

Outside of the top 12, he will have to re-qualify in Sunday's two final
qualifying rounds which will determine the final 16-car field for Monday¹s
eliminations. His three passes in two days included a 4.254/274.89, a
4.322/246.39, in which the car suffered fire damage, and a 4.184/296.89.

"On one hand, the fact that we went down the race track and ran decent after
burning the car up real bad validates what the Valvoline/MTS crew gets paid
to do," said Beckman, the 2008 U.S. Nationals Funny Car runner-up. "The
Valvoline/MTS guys had a lot of burned and charred stuff. They put a lot of
new pieces in the car and we were able to put a tune-up in it and go down
the track in the last pass.

"The problem is we weren't sure why the motor was breaking the first two
runs. Both Q1 and Q2 we hurt the engines, so we had to take some power out
to try to make it down the race track. The downside of that is we didn't go
as quick as we should have gone on that last run.

"But at least now that we've been down the track, the motor looks good. We
can look at the data and we can pump it up for tomorrow. But, I think the
good sessions are gone. Now we might be racing for the 13th spot. But, heck,
we've won from the bottom of the field, so we can do that. Period."

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