The NHRA New England Nationals at Epping, New Hampshire has been the site of some of NHRA Funny Car icon John Force’s greatest successes over the last decade. 

The sport’s all-time-winningest driver has earned three victories at New England Dragway — in 2015 (his 143rd career win), 2021 (for career win number 153), and what could possibly have been his final national event win as a driver a season ago, when he ousted his young protege, Austin Prock, for his record-improving 157th career victory. 

Just three weeks after that Epping triumph, Force was seriously injured in a high-speed crash in Virginia, and he and his team tabbed popular champion driver Jack Beckman to take over the controls of the PEAK Chevrolet Camaro as he recuperated from the accident. 

Jack Beckman has remained at the helm of Force’s championship-capable machine ever since, and as the team rolled into Epping, they were certainly hopeful to rekindle that magic at the popular Northeastern venue. 

Beckman entered raceday from the fifth starting position and got around Daniel Wilkerson in an opening-round pedal-fest. He then used his quickest run of the weekend — and the quickest of the round — a 3.878, to defeat Blake Alexander in round two, setting him up for a semifinal match with rookie Spencer Hyde. 

After a slight holeshot disadvantage to Hyde, Beckman’s machine struck the tires before it reached the Christmas tree, took an abrupt turn across the centerline, and into the opposing guardrail. Beckman careened nose-first into the barrier, and the car then spun around and slapped the concrete, sheering the right rear drive wheel off and causing extensive damage to the very expensive carbon-fiber body.

Beckman, unhurt and ever the showman, climbed from the car and stood atop its roof to salute the fans and assure them he was fine in the unfortunate melee.

“It started to shake and I pedaled it. It was one of those deals where when these things shake violently enough, your vision kind of shuts down for a second, and as soon as I pedaled, it just hooked left and you’re a passenger at that point,” Beckman, a 39-time national event winner, says. “I’ve seen a lot of those [types of accidents] and wondered [what I would do]. Clearly, I’d like a redo on that, and I wouldn’t have pedaled it, but sometimes these things just do some really unpredictable stuff out there, and that was one of them. And it’s a shame, because it was a great racecar, and this is a lot of extra work for us, especially with our first back-to-back races on the schedule this year.

“As a driver this is the last thing you want to do, and we had car that could win the race. We struggled a little bit today, and on that run it reared its head and lost traction. But we’ll be back. We will unload our spare, which was last year’s racecar, and we’ll be ready to go for Bristol.”