NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

With the official announcement at the Performance Racing Industry show in Indianapolis back in December that Jack Beckman is to inhabit the seat of the Peak Performance Chevrolet Camaro out of John Force Racing for the entire 2025 season and potentially beyond, it added a final air of stability to the most coveted seat in drag racing. It also means that Jack Beckman is about to make more runs in a Funny Car over a calendar year than he has in more than half a decade. All of that sounds pretty good to us. 

Knowing that he’ll be making the full pull through 2025, we decided to look at Beckman’s career statistics to see where he stands in a few places and where he could stand if he, his car, and his team perform to the exceptionally high level they were performing at in 2024. We’ll show you the current numbers and then follow them up with 2025 forecasting. 

35 career Funny Car wins

After scoring multiple victories in his comeback role to close out the 2024 season, including the In-N-Out Burger NHRA Finals, Beckman has run his career win count to 35 in the Funny Car class. Who can he catch? Two guys, actually. Cruz Pedregon stands at 39 victories (all in Funny Car), and Del Worsham has 39 victories combined in Top Fuel and Funny Car. If Beckman and his team were able to win two races in eight starts last season, it would seem logical that four wins in 20 would be achievable, right? 

If he were able to pass Pedregon, he’d move into the fifth all-time position on the wins list. 

766 round appearances/477 round-wins 

If you are a fan of round numbers, Beckman is potentially looking at two very large ones in 2025. Seemingly both of them are foregone conclusions, meaning the fact that he should stage a nitro Funny Car for the 800th time in eliminations in 2025 and he should achieve his 500th round-win in the Funny Car class as well. 

How can we be so sure of ourselves? Well, he achieved 24 round appearances in eight races in 2024 (technically seven, as he was unable to appear for round one in Dallas due to a medical issue), and his total round record was 18-6. 

There are not many members of the 800/500 club in nitro Funny Car racing, and it certainly would be another feather in a decorated career to hammer them both home in 2025. We surely expect him to. 

A 20-year anniversary 

When the tour rolls into Las Vegas for the NHRA 4-Wide Nationals in the spring, Beckman may have a moment of reflection at some point in the weekend. Why? It will represent the 20th anniversary of his first race as a professional in 2005. He was in a Top Fuel car, running part time at that point, but he was there and setting the roots of what would evolve into a long-lasting and enduring career of championship caliber and Hall of Fame trajectory. 

We don’t expect it to distract him much or cause him to get overly wistful, but one can only attempt to understand the ups, downs, peaks, and valleys of competing on a professional level for as long as Beckman has. It has not been an unbroken streak of 20 years, but it has been one that, as we have seen thus far, has produced a level of result both highly impressive and very rare in the sport. 

Career bests of 3.812 and 336.23 mph

Beckman, like his teammate Austin Prock, had a bestial race car to pilot over the last races of the 2024 season. He made career-best runs in the machine by the time the dust had settled in Pomona. The car was the same monster that John Force had been piloting early in the year, and with Daniel Hood, Chris Cunningham, and Tim Fabrisi working their tune-up, it was hitting with cannon-like ferocity. The natural question is whether the car can or will go quicker and faster yet with Beckman in it for the long haul. We’re saying yes. 

With an unchanged rules package for 2025 and at least one car that has dipped down into the 3.80 bracket with the same equipment, it seems that given the perfect atmospheric and track conditions, he could reset those numbers, perhaps marginally, during this upcoming campaign. 

One Funny Car championship

Of course, this is the big one. Beckman is a two-time NHRA champion with his 2003 NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series Super Comp title along with his 2012 Funny Car crown. There is zero doubt that he was the largest threat to Prock in 2024, and with the same logic as used above regarding his mount’s 2024 performance, it means that he’s likely, on paper anyway, the largest threat coming into 2025 as well. 

As a historical study, championships are interesting. Having one places you in the rare company of the sport’s greats, but having multiple titles places you in a different league. It shrinks your field of peers exponentially and changes the entire historical narrative of your career. As an ardent and dedicated student of the sport, Beckman knows this, and adding a second one to his legacy, whether he’d admit it or not, is something he’s hell-bent on achieving. The same can be said about the people who tune and wrench on his car. On paper, he comes into the season with the best chance he has maybe ever had to add a Funny Car bookend to his mantle. 

So, there’s a look at some of the numbers and potential history that Beckman stands to meet, beat, or downright mangle over the course of the 20-race 2025 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series run starting in Gainesville. His place in the annals of professional Funny Car racing is certainly cemented, but adding more accolades, bling, and personal achievements is the unceasing goal of every racer, every Sunday. He’s in a position to truly elevate himself across the many cold, hard, stat lines of NHRA history.