The statistics speak for themselves. Last season, eight different Funny Car drivers won, and not a single driver qualified for all 23 races. Thus far in 2008, the class seems to be following a similar script as six drivers have won in the first seven races and just five have made every show. With a confidence-inspiring win in Phoenix followed by a frustrating DNQ five races later in Madison, perhaps no one knows the ups and downs of modern Funny Car racing better than Valvoline/Mail Terminal Services driver “Fast Jack” Beckman.

“That’s just the nature of the beast right now,” said the former Super Comp national champion, who had previously qualified for 22 straight events, tops in the class prior to Madison. “Last year, I made the statement that I thought that 2007 would be the most competitive year in the history of Funny Car racing. I figured that the problems we’re currently having with the economy would prevent that trend from continuing this year because I thought we’d probably lose one or two cars from the tour. I’m starting to think that I was wrong because so far, I don’t think the competition has suffered one bit.

“There have been 19 to 20 cars at every race, and all of them are competitive. Take Madison for example: Gary Densham ran 4.85 twice, and he was dead last on the qualifying sheet. We ran 4.83 and 4.84, and we didn’t get in, either. If we had the opportunity to race on Sunday, we had every reason to think we could have won a round or two, but we never got the chance. It’s crazy. The competition is great for the fans, but for the drivers, crew chiefs, and team owners, it’s causing a lot of ulcers.”

Jack Beckman's season got off to a fast start with a victory in Phoenix.

In the wake of the Madison DNQ, the Valvoline/Mail Terminal Services team recently parted company with co-crew chief Rick Cassel and replaced him with another respected veteran, Johnny West, who will share tuning duties with Tommy Delago, who was brought in earlier this season. Delago and West join a formidable team of Schumacher Racing crew chiefs that include Ed “the Ace” McCulloch, Todd Okuhara, and Phil Shuler, all of whom share information.

“We tested Monday [after Madison], and then Don decided to make a crew chief change,” said Beckman. “I was disappointed from a personal standpoint because I really like Rick Cassel, but I also understand that it was necessary from a performance standpoint.

“We made three runs testing on Monday and had the quickest car, but that doesn’t get you anything. The biggest problem we’re having this year is getting a run behind in qualifying. As anyone in Funny Car will tell you, you’ve got to be solidly in the field on Friday so that you can take some chances on Saturday. Basically, you get to throw four darts, and if you drop the first one, it gets awful tough to hit the bull's-eye with the other three.

“Since Gainesville, we’ve struggled, but I don’t think that things are as bad as some people would have you believe,” Beckman continued. “Nobody on our team is about to hit the panic button. We just need to figure out a way to pick up about four-hundredths. Right now, the whole Schumacher Funny Car team has 12 round-wins, and we’ve got six of them. Ron Capps probably has the best car on the team right now, but he’s had no luck on Sunday.”

Beckman's Valvoline/MTS team soon will debut a new chassis for its Don Schumacher-owned entry.

Beckman’s team is also preparing to debut a new Brad Hadman-built chassis underneath its Dodge Charger body, perhaps as early as the upcoming Torco Racing Fuels Route 66 NHRA Nationals in Chicago. The chassis, which was built to conform to a recent NHRA rules revision, will be used exclusively beginning at the Mopar Mile-High NHRA Nationals in Denver.

“Obviously, we’d need to test the car before we race it, so hopefully that will happen soon,” said Beckman. “Johnny is still getting up to speed with our team, so the question becomes do we race the old car for as long as possible and allow Johnny to have as much time as possible to integrate with the crew? Or do we just bite the bullet and make all the changes at once and go with the new car?  That’s a tough question, but I know that we need to get ourselves back on track, and we need to do it soon. Whatever issues we’re having, we need to fix them now so that it doesn’t hurt us later. I’m only about 100 points out of third place, and that’s not too much to overcome, especially at this point in the season. This isn’t like baseball where you’re down by eight runs in the ninth inning and you’ve got almost no chance of coming back. An 80-point swing at one event isn’t out of the question; it happens all the time.

“You know, after we DNQ’d in St. Louis, I had someone come over to me and say, ‘Well, at least you got that out of the way early in the season.’ I said, ‘Really? Does that mean that we’re guaranteed to make every field from now till the end of the year?’ That was a ridiculous thing to say because obviously, there are no guarantees. True, it will be really tough for anyone to qualify for every race in Funny Car this year, but it doesn’t mean that you’re only going to have one or two DNQs.

“I don’t care who you are or how big your budget is, you’re going to have to fight to make every field. That’s just the way it is in Funny Car right now.”