Beckman Beats Capps For Funny Car Skoal Showdown Victory

CLERMONT, Ind. — Unlikely milestones have defined Jack Beckman’s adult life. And his $100,000 victory Sunday over Funny Car teammate Ron Capps in the National Hot Rod Ass’n’s Skoal Showdown is just another one of those plot twists.
After 10 years as an elevator specialist, Beckman was going up in the drag-racing world, the world the Southern California native had dreamed about since childhood. He became an instructor at Frank Hawley’s NHRA Driving School in 1998 and earned licenses in nine different classes while teaching more than 5,400 students. On the track, he earned more than 50 sportsman-level victories and the 2003 Super Comp championship.

FAST JACK: Jack Beckman defeated Don Schumacher Racing teammate Ron Capps to take the Skoal Showdown Sunday at O'Reilly Raceway Park. (Russ LaBounty Photo)

The next year, though, he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma — cancer. He focused on drag racing throughout chemotherapy treatments and miraculously missed only two races and two days of work. The doctor gave him a clean bill of health but told him he never could father children. He and wife Jenna are parents to six-month-old Jason.
In the meantime, Beckman got a Top Fuel ride that vanished by the next year. Then Don Schumacher hired him and he replaced Funny Car driver Whit Bazemore the week after the 2006 U.S. Nationals. In only his fourth race in a Funny Car, Beckman won at Las Vegas. In the next race, the Finals at Pomona, Calif., he was No. 1 qualifier, set both ends of the national record, and reached the final round.
His crew chiefs, Todd Okuhara and Phil Shuler, had prepared a dragster but found out in December that Beckman would be driving the Mail Terminal Services Dodge Charger Funny Car in 2007.

MONEY MAKER: Jack Beckman shows off his $100,000 after winning the Skoal Showdown Sunday at O'Reilly Raceway Park. (Russ LaBounty Photo)

So the unlikely happened once again for Beckman here Sunday at the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals.
He defeated top seed Robert Hight and Skoal-sponsored No. 4 Tommy Johnson, Jr., before edging No. 2 Capps by just seven feet in the first all-Don Schumacher Racing final round in this specialty event.
“I’ve never raced Robert before. We’ve run side by side in qualifying a half-dozen times, but we’ve never raced until then. The guy’s amazing. I love him to death. And getting around him, I thought, ‘Oooh, this might be our day’.”
It was.
Beckman registered a 4.950-second elapsed time at 313.80 mph for his biggest single-day payout. Capps’s 4.976-second e.t. and a faster 315.64-mph speed in the Brut Dodge Charger netted $15,000.