CHEVROLET IN NHRA
2024 NHRA MIDWEST NATIONALS
WORLD WIDE TECHNOLOGY RACEWAY
MADISON, ILLINOIS
TEAM CHEVY RACE REPORT | NOTES & STATS
SEPT. 29, 2024
JACK BECKMAN AND JOHN FORCE RACING CAPTURE THE NHRA MIDWEST NATIONALS VICTORY AT WORLD WIDE TECHNOLOGY RACEWAY
Competing on Behalf of John Force in the NHRA Countdown to the Championship, Beckman Notches his 36th Career NHRA Win and 34th in Funny Car
Notes:
- Capturing Chevrolet’s 169th NHRA win, Jack Beckman, driving the PEAK Chevrolet Camaro SS Funny Car on behalf of John Force, captured his 36th career NHRA win and 34th in Funny Car Sunday at World Wide Technology Raceway.
- After stepping back into a Funny Car for the first time in four years at Brainerd this season to compete on behalf of Force for the championship, Beckman raced to the Winner’s Circle in his 74th career final round and earned valuable points for Force.
- Despite facing issues on his semifinal run, Prock still leads the Countdown to the Championship point standings leaving World Wide Technology Raceway over John Force by 105 points. With Beckman’s Midwest Nationals win, he moves John Force up to second in the championship standings over Bob Tasca, III in third.
- John Force Racing’s Funny Cars are perfect in final round appearances and wins so far during the Countdown to the Championship, with Prock winning Reading and Charlotte 2, and Beckman winning Sunday at World Wide Technology Raceway.
- Facing only two qualifying sessions Saturday with Friday canceled for inclement weather, Prock leveraged his winning momentum to capture his 12th-career No. 1 qualifier with his stunning Q1 run of 3.836 seconds E.T. at 330.72 mph.
- Brittany Force qualified No. 3 after two qualifying sessions Saturday but faced an early end to her Midwest Nationals race day after being eliminated by Shawn Reed in Round 2.
- Dallas Glenn, of KB Titan Racing, and Aaron Stanfield, of Elite Motorsports, once again faced off in the Pro Stock finals, with Glenn coming out the Midwest Nationals victor over Stanfield, running 6.577 seconds E.T. at 207.82 mph.
- Sunday’s victory is Glenn’s 13th career victory, and with his impressive 0.010 seconds reaction time in the finals, he captured a back-to-back win after last week at Charlotte 2. Glenn continues to lead the Pro Stock championship standings by 31 points over Aaron Stanfield.
- Glenn’s win Sunday is Chevrolet’s 398th in the Pro Stock category since 1970.
- Six-time Pro Stock champion Erica Enders, driving the Johnson’s Horsepowered Garage Melling Chevrolet Camaro SS machine, captured her 41st career No. 1 qualifier after running 6.565 seconds E.T. at 208.01 mph in Q1.
- Aaron Stanfield captured the Factory X Wally trophy Sunday at the NHRA Midwest Nationals and leaves St. Louis continuing to lead the point standings by 119 over Lenny Lottig.
Quotes:
JACK BECKMAN, DRIVER OF THE PEAK ANTIFREEZE AND COOLANT CHEVROLET CAMARO SS FUNNY CAR, JOHN FORCE RACING:
“This is John’s trophy. He’ll tell me to take it home. But I have to thank John (Force), I’ve got to thank Robert Hight. For the confidence they had in me, all the sponsors… When Robert (Hight) called me, he said ‘Here’s the deal. If you want to do it, I still have to check all the boxes off.’ They called PEAK, they went to Chevy, and everybody said, ‘Yeah, we’re willing to let him get in there.’ They took a chance on me, and that group of guys on the PEAK Chevy Camaro team, they’re the baddest in the country today. We’re going to savor this. It feels great to be back.”
Everybody has been trying to take out your teammate (Austin Prock), but you’re the one to do it. How?
“I guess we cashed in here. They’ve (Austin Prock and the AAA team) been the class of the field. Our guys had to change the body after the first round. They blew up a Camaro SS pretty good there, but the PEAK/BlueDEF car… Clearly, the AAA/Cornwell Tools car (of Austin Prock) has been amazing all year long. We’re pretty darn good ourselves here. We’ve got a great chance to take a chunk out of their points lead. But more importantly, we want a win for John (Force).”
AUSTIN PROCK, DRIVER OF THE AAA/CORNWELL TOOLS CHEVROLET CAMARO SS FUNNY CAR, JOHN FORCE RACING:
“Obviously, we had to change everything on this AAA Chevrolet Camaro. When I got on it, it was just way over-revved, and I tried coming off of it. I mean, you’re only talking a few thousandths trying to feather that pedal. I had to stick that up a little bit, but that didn’t cause us to smoke the tires on the hit.”
You know, as cliche as it sounds, we wanted to come out and win the championship. We have all the parts, pieces, sponsors. John Force gives us a great operation to race out of. And we knew how good this car was. As long as I could do a decent job driving, we knew we were going to win races. And races won turn into championships…”
DALLAS GLENN, DRIVER OF THE RAD TORQUE SYSTEMS CHEVROLET CAMARO SS FUNNY CAR, KB TITAN RACING:
“I really want this one, this season. Really want the championship. We’ve had several great years, and I’ve always came up a little bit short. I really, really want this one. I’ve been to three final rounds here. I always came up just a little bit short. I really, really wanted it on that one. We drove over here from North Carolina last weekend, and then the next day everything got washed out. I don’t know exactly what we’re going home to. But yes! We’ve got the points lead still.”
JACK BECKMAN, driver of the PEAK Antifreeze and Coolant Chevrolet Camaro SS Funny Car, competing on behalf of John Force – Winner’s Circle Transcript:
You had to take on JR Todd, Daniel Wilkerson, Austin Prock, and Ron Capps on your way to the win. You’re back and back in the Winner’s Circle. Talk about your win…
“I was looking at the time slip because in the final round, lane choice for the next round doesn’t matter and you can chunk in if you want. What it does is make your reaction time look better, and it’s not. But it makes the E.T. look worse. We’re sitting up there, and I’m thinking ‘Whatever you’ve got to do, Jack, just make up your mind.’ You commit to it before they start the car, and I thought I was just going to go in shallow and let’s see what the car will run. That was the quickest 60-foot I have ever had in my life. That is getting with it. That PEAK BlueDEF Camaro SS is flying. I’m pretty sure it put a hole out and man, it started drifting right. I thought Capps was going to come by me, but our win light came on. That’s a lot of emotion in four seconds.”
You know how hungry Ron (Capps) is and you both go back a long way. He wanted it as bad as you did…
“Well, he’s owned me quite a bit. I don’t know what the record is. I think it’s a lot for him and not nearly as many for me. I don’t think it’s a secret, and I hope I don’t offend anybody, but they have not been their dominant self the last couple of months, but I knew they have been getting better and better. And this weekend they looked stellar. If you’ve looked at their numbers, like one of their runs, all four of us went 388’s, the winning cars in the semifinals. But Ron with the shallow stage probably would’ve been 386. They had the quickest car that round. They had lane choice, and this is the lane you want if you had lane choice, but I am (darn) fine with the right lane right now.”
When you got the call, you likely thought this could be the chance to add some trophies to your collection… Talk about it now that you’ve won:
“Two things – I had eight races for this year, and I thought we could win eight races. We may not win any races. You just don’t know because sometimes you have to have some luck and fortune on your side. A couple of races ago at Maple Grove, I lost first round and then Joe Morrison nipped the cone at the finish line and we’re back in. That’s racing luck. But if you run good and haul butt consistently, you’re going to make your own racing luck. Chris Cunningham, Danny Hood, Tim Fabrisi, and everybody on that team made our luck today.”
Beating John Force Racing teammate Austin Prock has been seemingly impossible. By anyone. Talk about defeating him today…
“I think I count 14 straight round wins for that team, which is hard to believe. When somebody is super duper good at something, it makes it look easy. If you’ve never golfed, and you watch pro golfers, that looks easy. Until you try it, and then realize this is way more difficult than it seems because they are pros. What (Austin) Prock and (Jimmy) Prock have been doing the last few races, they make it look easy. And it’s not easy, folks. It’s not easy at all. We’ve had a good streak where we’ve made it look easy. It’s just a matter of getting that data because I know that that is John Force’s car, but that car had never been down the racetrack. I weigh 20 pounds more than John (Force), and our driving styles are different. Tim and Chris and Dan had to take time to figure out what this car wanted to haul butt down low and still pull hard in the middle of the track. In case you haven’t looked, I think they may have figured it out.”
Three races left. Prock is still going to be a handful, but you’re in the thick of it now…
“Well, nobody’s catching them if they keep doing what they’re doing. But if we can win out and they lose early a couple of times, and we’ll be right there. We can run on par with that car. That sounds like a boastful statement, but we can. That’s a testament to both of the John Force (Racing) cars. But we also know not to get out of our comfort zone. When we went up against them, we ran what we thought this lane could handle. There’s a little jump out there at 300 feet that really upsets the Funny Cars, and you’ve really got to slow the clutch down. You give up a little bit in (elapsed time). We were able to negotiate that lane just fine. Now, who knows if they hadn’t spun the tires. But you don’t would of, could of, should of here. We made it to the finish line, and we turned on the win light, and we beat the baddest car in Funny Car this year.”
What do you want to say to John (Force) watching this?
“I love you, man. You know I love you. We’re going to work on hugs. I know he’s not a big hugger, but we will hug. This is your trophy. I’ll store it if you want, but that’s your trophy.”
Up Next:
The NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series Countdown to the Championship continues Oct. 10-13 at the Texas NHRA FallNationals at Texas Motorplex. Eliminations air Sunday at 4 p.m. ET on FOX Sports 1 (FS1). Coverage of qualifying and the race stream live throughout the weekend on NHRA.tv, and is available via AppleTV, Android TV, and Roku devices.
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