New crew chief helps steer Beckman, Freightliner Funny Car to No. 5 position for Sunday's NHRA 4-wide Nationals

April 14

CONCORD, N.C. (April 14, 2012) - Jack Beckman will start Sunday's Four-Wide NHRA Nationals ranked third in points in the Full Throttle Drag Racing Series.

When Don Schumacher Racing reorganized its crew chief line up after the event at Las Vegas two weeks ago, Beckman had a new crew chief in veteran Todd Smith but his former full-time crew chief, Rahn Tobler, would continue to work on Beckman's Freightliner/Valvoline NextGen Funny Car while assuming the lead role for the NAPA AUTO PARTS Dodge Charger R/T driven by Ron Capps.

After two days of qualifying, Beckman's drive toward his first professional championship hasn't stalled. The Southern California resident, who finished second in last year's championship points race, is qualified fifth for Sunday's championship eliminations of the unique event at Charlotte Motor Speedway's zMAX Dragway at Concord that has the world's only four-lane dragstrip.

Beckman's best runs of the weekend were on Friday and that allowed Smith and Tobler to work on other changes to the Funny Car.

"The fact that we ran good on Friday took the pressure off," Beckman said. "I'm proud of everyone. These guys work for the team and work for our sponsors, and I'm just the guy that gets to drive it.

"The NAPA crew, the Freightliner/Valvoline crew, all of them came in on their days off since Vegas, went through everything on the cars

"To come out here and run that closely together on the second run (Friday) is very, very rewarding for the teams."

The following are Beckman's qualifying results and DSR notes:

Jack Beckman, Freightliner/Valvoline NextGen Dodge Charger R/T
Qualifying position: No. 5
Sunday's 1st round opponents: Cruz Pedregon, Todd Lesenko, Courtney Force

FRIDAY
Session 1: 4.429 sec., 217.46 mph
Session 2: 4.113, 308.28
SATURDAY
Session 3: 9.209, 78.97
Session 4: 6.110, 116.15

FULL THROTTLE SCHEDULE:
Sunday: Eliminations, noon.

ON ESPN2
Sunday: 7-10 p.m. (ET); 7 p.m. (PT)

WEATHER.COM FORECAST:
Sunday: High 83, partly cloudy, 20 percent chance of rain

FOUR-WIDE FOUR-MAT
The Four-Wide NHRA Nationals features the world's most unique drag racing format at the world's only four-lane dragstrip at the world's most impressive drag racing stadium.
Here are some tips about understanding how racing four-wide works:

Sunday eliminations: The specially-modified eliminations ladder in Sunday's first round will feature Race A (qualifiers 1, 8, 9, 16), Race B (qualifiers 4, 5, 12, 13), Race C (qualifiers 2, 7, 10, 15) and Race D (qualifiers 3, 6, 11, 14). Race A and Race B will be on one side of the ladder, while Race C and Race D will be on the other.
The first two cars to get to the finish line barring redlight or other disqualification advance to the next round.
In the final round, the drivers will finish first through fourth in the order they cross the finish line, barring any red-light starts.

Lane choice: First-round lane choice will go to the quickest qualifier in the group of four, second choice to the second-quickest, and third choice to the third-quickest. In subsequent rounds, first choice will go to the driver with the lowest elapsed time from the previous round, second choice to the second-lowest, and third choice to the third-lowest.

About Freightliner
Freightliner Trucks is a division of Daimler Trucks North America LLC, headquartered in Portland, Oregon, and is the leading heavy-duty truck manufacturer in North America. Daimler Trucks North America produces and markets Class 4-8 trucks and is a Daimler company, the world's leading commercial vehicle manufacturer. Freightliner Trucks received the highest
overall ranking for vocational products in the 2009 J.D. Power and Associates Heavy Duty Truck Customer Satisfaction Study(SM).

For more information, go to www.FreightlinerTrucks.com.

About Valvoline
Valvoline, a brand of Ashland Inc, has been serving American motorists longer than any other motor oil. The Valvoline family of products includes Eagle One™ appearance products, Car Brite™ car restoration products, Zerex™ antifreeze, SynPower™ performance products, MaxLife™ products created for higher-mileage engines and NextGen™ motor oil, created with 50 percent recycled oil.
With more than 820 locations throughout the United States, Valvoline Instant Oil Change™ is a leader in serving the quick lube market.

About Don Schumacher Racing
Don Schumacher Racing, headquartered in Brownsburg, Ind., consists of seven professional NHRA teams: in Top Fuel, the U.S. Army dragster driven by seven-time world champion Tony Schumacher, the FRAM/Prestone dragster of Spencer Massey and the Matco Tools dragster of Antron Brown; and in Funny Car, 2011 NHRA Funny Car champion Matt Hagan in the Aaron's Dream Machine/Mopar Dodge Charger R/T, Valvoline NextGen Dodge piloted by Jack Beckman, the NAPA AUTO PARTS Dodge of Ron Capps and the Service Central Dodge of Johnny Gray. DSR has won 177 NHRA national event titles and nine world championships.

Follow Don Schumacher Racing at ShoeRacing.com, on Twitter at @shoeracing and Facebook.com/shoeracing.