Nobody Can Replace John Force, But Funny Car Driver Jack Beckman Will Try

Tuesday’s announcement that “Fast” Jack Beckman would replace the injured John Force for the rest of the 2024 NHRA drag racing season came out of left field. After all, Beckman’s last full season driving NHRA Funny Cars was in 2020, and he had gone back to a job he left 22 years ago to follow his dream of being a drag racer: That job was, and is, an elevator repairman.

Or, as he sometimes put it, a “vertical transportation specialist.”

He has big shoes to fill: Force is easily the most popular drag racer, and arguably the most successful, with 157 career victories and 16 championships. Beckman became friends with Force largely because, as an instructor at Frank Hawley’s Drag Racing School, Beckman taught Force’s daughters, Ashley, Brittany and Courtney, how to race.

Beckman figured that after 2020, his drag racing career was done. COVID hit a lot of sports hard, and professional drag racing was among the casualties. It’s a sponsor-driven sport—unless you have family money available, you have to have a sponsor to help pay the bills—and during and after the pandemic, companies just pulled back to wait and see what happened.

What happened to Beckman, the 2012 NHRA Funny Car Champion, and his teammate, Tommy Johnson, Jr., in 2020 was typical: Both raced for the powerhouse Don Schumacher team, which had fielded seven cars in 2019. Schumacher had little choice but to trim his operation, and Beckman and Johnson were out.

That was preceded by a major blow to everyone at Don Schumacher Racing: the death of Terry Chandler, 65, to brain cancer in 2017. She was the shy, unassuming New Mexico heiress to an oil fortune who happened to love drag racing, and she funded the cars of Beckman and Johnson, pulling an estimated $4 million to $6 million a year out of the pocket of her blue jeans, which she said she bought at Walmart.

Both cars raced with non-profit charities as sponsors, a gift from Chandler which, she told me in 2015, was not even tax deductible. “I’m just trying to pay it forward,” she said then. “I’ve been blessed. And I just want to help.” Two years later, she was gone. Her family funded the two cars for a while, but when COVID hit, that was over, too.

On the side of Beckman’s car was the Infinite Hero Foundation, a nonprofit funding multiple programs for former soldiers and their families with physical or mental challenges. Beckman, who was a sergeant in the U.S. Air Force and is a cancer survivor, was a perfect fit for that charity. Teammate Johnson’s car ran with the children’s Make-A-Wish charity on the side.

In 2020, Beckman told the Indianapolis Star that it was probably over. “This very possibly is going to be my last year in a pro environment,” Beckman said. “I’m not saying this to be outrageous or hyperbolic. It’s just to be pragmatic about it. I think there’s about an 80 percent chance I’m not going to be driving next year.” He was right—he didn’t. But by all accounts, Beckman was a pretty happy guy in elevator-retirement, spending his spare time becoming a self-taught drag racing historian.

The awful 303-mph crash that driver and team owner John Force suffered on June 23 at the Virginia Nationals in Richmond—if you missed it, here it is on YouTube—shook the sport. Force, 75 and still winning races, suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI) that has sidelined him for the rest of the season, and, truth be told, probably forever.

Sources suggest he was planning to retire at the end of the 2024 season, but he was hoping to go out on his terms. He was well on the way to doing that: Force was second in points, behind his teammate, Austin Prock. Even now, Force is still a solid sixth in points after missing three races.

Here’s where this starts to make sense: It so happens that during COVID, the NHRA re-wrote a rule concerning season points, saying that a team can use a replacement driver for up to eight races, and still apply the points to the original driver’s total. And guess how many NHRA races are left? Yes, eight, of course. So John Force Racing has a sponsored Funny Car just sitting there, not making money or gathering points, and they needed a replacement driver who could get up to speed—which is about 330 mph—quickly. That’s Beckman, who’s 58. He’s hoping he can give John Force a 17th season championship.

He seems to be a popular choice among fellow drivers. “It will be exciting and challenging to have Jack Beckman back in the Funny Car class,” Buddy Hull, driver of the Jim Dunn Racing Funny Car, told Hagerty. “He’s a world champion and a great driver, as well as an amazing spokesperson. He’s a great choice to fill the seat in the short term for John Force. I’m looking forward to seeing him at the track. Of course, I also hope John continues to improve.” Hull, incidentally, makes his debut tonight at 8 p.m. ET as the host of “Talkin’ Funny Cars,” a new show on the NHRA’s 24-hour FAST cable channel. Hull’s first guest is fellow driver Ron Capps.

Several other potential drivers might have made sense, too, as a replacement for Force: Del Worsham, currently the crew chief for Alexis Dejoria, could have been a good choice. For that matter, three-time champion Robert Hight, 54, presently the president of John Force Racing, would certainly have had first dibs on the ride, but he quit racing at the start of the year to deal with what Force called “a health issue.” Logic suggests that he’s still dealing with it. Hight had essentially disappeared, but has reappeared as the company spokesman after Force’s crash.

Beckman gets to practice up this weekend at the 47th Annual “Night Under Fire” at Summit Motorsports Park in Ohio, a non-points event that should give Beckman at least four runs to knock the rust off before his official points-race debut August 16th at the 42nd Annual Lucas Oil Nationals at Brainerd, Minnesota.

He knows he needs it. “It’s been nearly four years since I stood on the throttle, and I thought that feeling was something I’d never experience again,” Beckman said. “Though the circumstances that brought me back are regrettable, the opportunity presented to me is beyond my ability to find words. I’m not replacing John—nobody could ever do that. John is one of a kind, and his impact on this sport, and my life, cannot be overemphasized. I know how fortunate I am to have been picked to fill in for John, and I should be easy to spot in the pits. I’ll be the guy who can’t stop smiling.”