Dodge Charger R/T Funny Cars Qualify Top-Three for NHRA Fall Nationals

Pair of DSR 2015 Dodge Charger R/T Funny Cars Qualify Top-Three for NHRA Fall Nationals.

Funny car fans from Hauppauge, Manorville, Stony Brook, and all over Long Island were glued to their TVs as Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) pilots Jack Beckman and Matt Hagan respectively qualified their 2015 Dodge Charger R/T Funny Cars second and third for Sunday's elimination rounds at the 30th anniversary edition of the AAA Texas National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) FallNationals, the fourth of six "Countdown to the Championship" playoff events, taking place at Texas Motorplex near Dallas, Texas. The two Mopar drivers are also respectively second and third in the Countdown standings with three race days left to battle for world championship title, which means the importance of a win to either this Sunday definitely lends credence to the expression "everything is bigger in Texas."

Once qualifying was complete, Beckman was just 18 points behind leader Del Worsham. He earned five valuable bonus points on Friday by driving the Infinite Hero 2015 Dodge Charger R/T to a 4.000-second elapsed time run at 313.29 mile per hour for the top pass of the first session and then a 3.919-second/ 323.97 mph pass in the cool 74 degree Fahrenheit evening session to narrowly miss earning the provisional pole position by two-thousandths of a second to Worsham who set the track record at 3.917 seconds.

"I feel great going into race day," said Beckman whose No. 2 seeding for eliminations will give him Tony Pedregon as a first round opponent. "We got bonus points on three of our four qualifying runs that gave us the luxury of pushing it harder in today's last session. Sometimes stepping over the line actually tells you how much you can push the car. I'm very optimistic about tomorrow. Del (Worsham) is doing fantastic and they're the ones we're chasing right now. If the day goes perfect tomorrow, the soonest we could meet them would be the final round but there are three of four other cars out there who can join the chase out here in the Countdown."

Reigning World Champion Matt Hagan had four strong consistent passes through qualifying with his best run coming on Friday evening aboard his Pennzoil-schemed Dodge Charger R/T with a 3.921 sec /323.43 mph pass to give him the provisional third place seeding for eliminations. On his final run, Hagan took his Mopar for another sub-four second pass with a 3.971/324.36 for the third quickest of the session behind Worsham and teammate Beckman once again, for two extra bonus points.

Not far below his DSR stablemates on the qualifying sheets is Ron Capps who rounded out the top-five with a three second run of his own aboard the 2015 Dodge Charger R/T. Capps is also fifth in points with two wins this season and hoping to stay within shooting distance of the top spot with a successful run for the Texas title. The veteran's best pass of 3.942/324.67 pairs him up with Cruz Pedregon for the opening round.