Trio of Semifinal Appearances for Mopar at NHRA SpringNationals in Houston.
Sportsman Racer Kevin Helms Takes Mopar to Stock Eliminator Title Win.
A trio of Mopars, made up of two Funny Cars and a Pro Stock, battled their way through eliminations to semifinal appearances at the 29th annual National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) SpringNationals, while in the Sportsman ranks, a Stock Eliminator title win and runner-up finish in Super Stock were also earned at Royal Purple Raceway near Houston Texas.
Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) drivers Jack Beckman, seeded 12th and Tommy Johnson Jr., seeded seventh, made some good gains with the Dodge Charger R/T Funny cars through eliminations to make it to the semifinals.
Beckman, who despite having been No. 1 qualifier at three of the six NHRA events this season, struggled in qualifying at Houston but seemed to have made some progress on race day after posting his best lap of the weekend, a 3.958 second pass at 319.67 mph, to earn the first round win over Robert Hight.
In the second round, Beckman's quicker reaction time at the starting line allowed his slower 3.949/325.22 to post the holeshot win over Del Worsham 3.944/324.59 and advance to a semifinal match-up against Tim Wilkerson.
"It's disappointing to not win but the silver lining is that we found some things about this car that will help us down the line," Beckman said. "We came out of here with semifinals points and we're headed in a direction that makes me very excited to get to the next race in two weeks in Atlanta."
Johnson and his Make-A-Wish Dodge Charger R/T crew were also bolstered by two round wins against John Force and Alexis DeJoria, prior to his semifinal loss to eventual title winner Courtney Force, who also took over the points lead with her first win of the season.
"We had a really good race day," Johnson said. "Coming into this race, we had struggled a bit this season so today we were really happy with how the car performed and how well our guys adjusted to the conditions because they were totally different than yesterday. The guys did a nice job making really solid, consistent runs. It seems like we've got our race car back to where we're able to tune and make changes and it responds how we want it to. That's big, that will help give us a little momentum going forward."
Maybe it was the bright yellow special paint scheme for his Pennzoil Dodge Charger R/T, but Matt Hagan had a much sunnier outlook on his Mopar team's progress after going two rounds on Sunday.
He ran a 3.982-second pass at 317.64 mph to earn the win over Chad Head, and despite lowering the mark with 3.954/324.59 on his second lap, it wasn't quite enough to defeat Wilkerson, who finished runner-up on to title winner Courtney Force.
"Obviously, we wanted to go more rounds here in Houston, but we've made huge headway since the last few races," said Hagan who with the result makes his way back into the top-ten in points. "We had some chassis issues then kind of got in a rut before we went back to our old race car. We're still figuring it out a little bit because every year things are a little different.
"I really, truly in my heart believe we've turned a corner," Hagan added. "We've very positive, very optimistic for the next race at Atlanta in two weeks. We've definitely got something good to work with."
DSR teammate Ron Capps also made it to the quarterfinals with a win over Cruz Pedregon and a loss to Courtney Force, and is currently on 22 points behind her in third place in the Funny Car standings on the strength of two final round appearances and a No.1 qualifier position so far this season.