Johnson stops Beckman sweep bid, wins Funny Car title at NHRA Northwest Nationals - TheNewsTribune.com
At this point, drag racer Tommy Johnson Jr. knows he isn’t performing at Jack Beckman’s ungodly performance level in the National Hot Rod Association. Not only did Johnson, of Avon, Indiana, win the Funny Car race title at the 28th annual NHRA Northwest Nationals on a warm Sunday at Pacific Raceways in Kent, he ended the bid of Beckman, a fellow Don Schumacher Racing teammate, to sweep the... Beckman might have had the weekend’s best car — he did post the quickest 1,000-foot run in NHRA history to close qualifying Saturday night (3. 912 seconds) — but Johnson was the last man standing Sunday. After upending Beckman in the Funny Car semifinals, Johnson held off Del Worsham, of Villa Park, California, in the finals to win on a holeshot — 4. 073 ET to 4. 042. Other professional winners included J. R. Todd, of Indianapolis, in Top Fuel... Beckman had blistered the Funny Car field the past two weeks in Denver and Sonoma, California, to come in as the heavy favorite. “How (well) they are running, we were in the staging lanes, and I said to (Beckman), ‘There is not a person in this place that thinks we are going to beat you,’” Johnson said. Source: www.thenewstribune.com
