AMALIE Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals
Event No. 7
Gainesville Raceway
September 25-27, 2020
Highlights:
- DSR’s Funny Car contingent will be looking to extend its streak of nine consecutive wins at the Gatornationals. All four DSR Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat pilots have claimed at least one victory throughout the first six races of 2020
- The only other time in the series’ history that a team swept 10 consecutive race wins in a single category was during the 2017 season when the same lineup of current DSR Dodge drivers contributed to that streak
- DSR is currently in championship contention in each of the three categories it competes in – Top Fuel, Funny Car, and the Factory Stock Showdown Series
- DSR occupies the top three spots in the Funny Car point rankings with Jack Beckman leading the class. Matt Hagan and Tommy Johnson Jr. sit No. 2 and 3, respectively, and Ron Capps rounds out the top five
- Leah Pruett arrives in Gainesville second in the Top Fuel championship standings with a runner-up finish at the NHRA U.S. Nationals
- Pruett will once again pull double-duty, competing in both the Top Fuel and Factory Stock categories, and will have the opportunity to compete for two trophies over the course of the weekend
- Mark Pawuk occupies the No. 2 spot on the Factory Stock leaderboard after a runner-up finish at the previous event
(EXCERPT)
JACK BECKMAN
Driver of the Infinite Hero Foundation Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat
Gainesville Event Highlights:
- 2018 event champion
Two-time No. 1 qualifier (2016, 2018) - 2019 Gainesville Recap:
Qualified sixth; Semifinal finish (defeated J.R. Todd in E1, Tommy Johnson Jr. in E2; defeated by Tim Wilkerson in E3)
Last Event (U.S. Nationals):
Qualified seventh; Event champion (defeated Cruz Pedregon in E1, Ron Capps in E2, Tim Wilkerson in E3, J.R. Todd in E4)
2020 Season Statistics:
Two event wins; 15 round wins; ranked No. 1 in points
Career Statistics:
330 races; 32 wins; 27 No. 1 qualifiers
Noteworthy:
- Beckman is the current point leader, and including his U.S. Nationals victory, is a two-time winner in four final rounds in 2020
- Beckman is currently participating in the Infinite Hero Foundation’s Task Force 22 campaign to help raise vital funds for mental health and suicide prevention programming for our nation’s veterans. The former U.S. Air Force sergeant has donated a custom helmet as well as a Zoom call, available to win now through the end of the month: https://www.infinitehero.org/task-force-22/
Quotable:
“I love Indy, but it’s going to be fun to go to a different venue and I fully expect to see fans foaming at the mouth for drag racing. The fans in this area have been clamoring for this since March, so it’s going to be a lot of fun. You want to win every race you go to and it would be great to give Don Schumacher a 10th straight Funny Car victory. We lost the points lead for a race, so it felt good to come back and vindicate ourselves at the U.S. Nationals, and we’ll try to extend it in Gainesville.”
About Don Schumacher Racing:
Established in 1998 as a single-car Top Fuel team, Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) has grown to become the winningest organization in NHRA Drag Racing history. Including team owner Don Schumacher’s five NHRA Funny Car titles from the 1970s, DSR’s current win count stands at 351, and DSR is one of a very small handful of teams in the motorsports industry to surpass the 350 milestone. DSR owns 17 world championships in three different NHRA categories.
Headquartered in Brownsburg, Indiana, DSR currently fields seven professional teams competing in the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series. In Top Fuel, the Matco Tools/Global Electronic Technology/Toyota dragster driven by three-time world champion Antron Brown, the Mopar/Pennzoil dragster driven by Leah Pruett, and the Okuma/Sandvik Coromant machine driven by eight-time world champion, Tony Schumacher. In Funny Car, the NAPA AUTO PARTS Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat driven by 2016 world champion Ron Capps, the Mopar Express Lane/Pennzoil Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat piloted by two-time series title-holder Matt Hagan, and in Doug Chandler’s ‘giving cars,’ 2012 NHRA world champion Jack Beckman in the Infinite Hero Foundation Dodge, and Tommy Johnson Jr. behind the wheel of the MD Anderson Dodge.
DSR also campaigns two Factory Stock Showdown entries. The duo is piloted by Pruett, the 2018 Factory Stock Showdown Series champion, and former Pro Stock racer Mark Pawuk.
Follow Don Schumacher Racing at Shoeracing.com, on Twitter and Instagram at @shoeracing and Facebook.com/shoeracing.
