(NHRA Pro Racing Summary Courtesy of Halie Schmidt – NHRA Communications)

Beckman Dixon, Line and Hines Earn Norwalk Notoriety

NORWALK, Ohio – Jack Beckman received a birthday gift as he raced to his second Funny Car victory of the season Sunday at the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals a first for him at this track.

Larry Dixon, Jason Line and Andrew Hines also were winners of the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series event at Summit Racing Equipment Motorsports Park.

Beckman drove his Valvoline/Mail Terminal Services Charger to his second win of the season and moved to fourth in the Full Throttle Series points standings, by his nearly perfect .001 reaction time off the line against Bob Tasca. Beckman earned his eighth career victory with a performance of 4.315 at 277.54, while Tasca trailed in his Motorcraft Quicklane Ford Shelby Mustang with a 6.470 at 149.93.

“I think it’s only on your birthday that you get away with what I got away with,” said Beckman, who battled a head cold all weekend. “I made a mistake, pure and simple. We had a good car, but we were vulnerable. As I stepped on the throttle, I was looking down at the green light as I went by and it went green and I went, ‘Wow, we’re still very much in this thing.’

“We’ve been sliding down in points the last couple of weeks, so it was good to go from sixth to fourth. Our goal is to be a top-five car by Indy, and, more importantly, our goal is to be consistently quick come Indy. Once the points are reset anyone in the top five has a chance [to win the championships], and if you can hit your stride now, like we did last year heading into Denver, we’re going to be in good shape for the summer months.”

Dixon drove his Alan Johnson Al-Anabi Racing dragster to his fifth win of the season and first at this track with a performance of 3.981 at 294.54, while Bernstein smoked the tires in his Budweiser/ Lucas Oil dragster with a 7.257 at 94.06.

“Four win lights at the end of the day, that’s what counts,” said Dixon. “There were certain rounds that were not pretty, but at the same time, we were the quickest car every pair. I’m just real thankful to be able to get this win.”

“The biggest thing is that [this is] a good team and they’re working on trying to find the personality of all the brand new parts they have, and for me, it’s trying to find my comfort zone within the team. Being underneath one camp for a long period of time and then you switch, it’s different. It’s taken me a little while to adapt and try to fit in and hold up my end of the bargain.”

Line earned his fourth win of the season and 18th of his career in his Summit Racing Pontiac GXP at his sponsors home track, taking his place as 10th on the Pro Stock all-time list. This was the first race using teammate Greg Anderson’s 2008 car after Lines’ team had performance issues with his car.

“This was absolutely the biggest win for me, and it was a great time to do it,” said Line. “We’re tired of watching that yellow car win races, and we needed to get out there too. We just haven’t done a good job lately. But we’re starting to right the ship, and by Indy time, we’re going to be strong. It’s hopefully a sign of things to come for us, and it was a great day.”

“My truck driver, Sonny McCurdy, he told me a couple weeks ago, ‘Keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting.’ So we said, ‘We’ve gotta change something up here because we’ve just been terrible, and we’re a better team than that.’ It was Rob’s [Downing, crew chief] decision [to use Anderson’s old car], and it was time. There was really nothing wrong with the other car, we just couldn’t see the forest for the trees. So we made some changes, and obviously it’s paid off for us. And it’s going to get better.”

In Pro Stock Motorcycle, Hines won his first race of the season, 16th of his career with a performance of 7.024 at 189.98 on his Lucas Oil Buell, to hold off fellow Screamin’ Eagle Vance & Hines rider Eddie Krawiec, who finished in 7.032 at 190.78.

“It’s been 19 or 20 races [since last win], and it feels good to do it with my teammate in the other lane; it made it that much better,” said Hines, who also won here in 2007. “Eddie’s been kicking my butt lately, so I hit the Tree hard in the semifinals when I had a bye, and in the final, I figured I had nothing to lose I hadn’t been there in a while; if I go red, I go red. I threw everything I had at it because I knew I needed something against Eddie. It’s good to finally be back on my game on the starting line.

Coughlin Collects 3rd K&N Horsepower Challenge (By: Scott Woodruff)

The best drag racer on the 2009 NHRA tour added $50,000 and a win in the 25th annual K&N Horsepower Challenge to his impressive resume Saturday when five-time national event winner Jeg Coughlin Jr. beat the best drivers in Pro Stock for his third K&N Horsepower Challenge title.

"Any time you win a race that only invites the best of the best it's pretty darn special," Coughlin said. "It certainly sets a great tone for this weekend and continues the momentum we've built over the first part of the season. We're going for our 60th career national event win tomorrow so we could really make this one of the all-time weekends."

Spurred on by a partial home state crowd, Coughlin, of Delaware, Ohio, was an underdog all day but used exceptional driving to claim the special race-within-a-race, which invites the top eight qualifiers from the previous 12 months to battle for cash prizes.

"To do it here in Ohio makes it all the better," Coughlin said. "This race always used to be run in Englishtown, N.J., but they moved it here and that's okay by me. We have a bunch of family and friends here supporting us and it's really neat to give them something to get excited about. It's going to be wild winner's circle celebration."

Action began with a tough matchup against Allen Johnson, who had driven to the provisional Pro Stock pole Friday evening for the regular national event. This time, Johnson encountered severe tire shake 200 feet into the race and had to abort his run, handing the win to No. 6 qualifier Coughlin, who went 6.670 at 206.95 mph.

Another monster race awaited Coughlin in the semifinals with red-hot Mike Edwards in the other lane. But just as he has so many times before this year, Coughlin posted an incredible reaction time of .012 seconds ahead of Edwards' sluggish .055-second start, which translated to a holeshot victory at the other end. Coughlin takes the stripe first with a 6.709 at 206.95 mph to Edwards' quicker but losing 6.673 at 207.75 mph.

In the final, Coughlin faced a familiar foe in Greg Anderson, but once again got an early jump -- .020 to .062 seconds -- and never looked back, screaming away to an easy win in 6.675 at 207.05 mph. Anderson encountered tire spin at the launch and couldn't recover enough to make a run at Coughlin, crossing with a resigned 7.322 at 161.69 mph.

"For us to run a 6.67 just now in the final round, in the heat of the day no less, is pretty stout," Coughlin said. "I'm not sure what happened to Greg but with the advantage we had at the start of the race I'm not sure he could have caught us any way."

This marked Coughlin's third K&N Horsepower Challenge win. He also claimed the trophy in 199 and 2000.