Photography: John Force Racing / Gary Nastase / Auto Imagery
SONOMA, Calif. (July 23, 2025) – On the eve of this week’s 37th NHRA Sonoma Nationals at Sonoma Raceway, “Fast Jack” Beckman admitted that he won’t be satisfied with a single round win – even though that’s all he needs to become just the 26th professional to turn on 500 win-lights in the Mission Foods drag racing series.
The 2012 Funny Car Champion has a slightly bigger number in mind. Four. That’s four round wins, a number that not only would earn him a spot in the 500 Club but also propel him to his third win of the season, virtually assuring a Top Two starting spot in the NHRA’s upcoming Countdown to the Championship.
To accomplish that goal, though, the 59-year-old cancer survivor knows that the PEAK Squad that prepares his potent PEAK Antifreeze and Coolant Chevrolet SS will have to recapture a consistency that was missing during last week’s NHRA Northwest Nationals at Seattle, Wash.
“Seattle was a mixed bag,” said the former Super Comp World Champ (2003). “On one hand, we had the quickest run of the entire event while winning the first round, a ‘nailed it’ 3.83 (at 335.17 miles per hour). On the other, we struggled more than we ever have with consistency. Sonoma should represent a return to our trademark.”
Over the first half of the regular season, the PEAK Chevy was one of the two dominant cars in the category primarily due to its ability to perform at a championship level on hot racetracks and cool racetracks in virtually all conditions.
While it has struggled in that area over the past month, suffering early exits in three of the last four races, Beckman believes the brain trust of Daniel Hood, Chris Cunningham and Tim Fabrisi has his “blue bullet” back on form for the last three events of the regular season.
“I have many great memories (of Sonoma) dating back to my first time spectating there in 1992,” the U.S. Air Force veteran said of this week’s return to his home state, “through many Sportsman wins up to setting the NHRA national record (at 3.921 seconds on the way to a 2015 victory with Jimmy Prock as his crew chief at Don Schumacher Racing).
Relegated to the sidelines after a 2020 season in which he finished third in points, Beckman returned to his old job as an elevator repair technician, believing that his racing career, at least at the professional level, was over. He was wrong.
When eight-time Sonoma winner and 16-time series champion John Force was injured in a high-speed crash at Richmond, Va., in June 2024, Beckman was asked to fill-in for the duration of the season.
After acquitting himself admirably, winning twice in eight starts and finishing second in points behind only teammate Austin Prock, he found himself back in full-time competition this year and, this week, on the cusp of making history.
