Meet the PEAK Squad: Fast Jack Beckman

There’s a reason they call him Fast Jack. With 39 national event wins under his belt, this 2012 NHRA Funny Car World Champion and 2003 Super Comp World Champion also recently claimed the 300th Funny Car win for the legendary John Force Racing. In other words, he’s a veteran. But he’s been chasing speed since well before he started racking up the accolades on the dragstrip.

From the time he fell in love with drag racing at age 7 to enlisting in the Air Force at 17 and then taking that first run down a dragstrip in his ‘68 El Camino, Jack Beckman’s life has been built around going fast.

We sat down with Fast Jack to chat about his love of racing, and the latest chapter of his career driving for John Force Racing.

Racing is in Jack’s DNA

Jack Beckman was born into a family of car enthusiasts, including both parents. But it was his uncle, drag racer John Jorgenson, who took him to see his first drag race at the Orange County International Raceway when he was 7. “I was instantly hooked,” says Jack. “I couldn’t believe the way they sounded. I was not prepared for the way they smelled, or shook the ground, and the way they looked.”

The proximity to the pits and the drivers made just as big of an impression on young Jack. “To watch a car go out there and run that way and then to come back to the pits and watch a human being get out of that car and start working on it — and to be this close to them, was something I was unprepared for. I was blown away and I still feel the same way to this date. It's just awe inspiring what these vehicles and human beings are capable of doing.” 

Chasing Performance, Trophies and Prize Money

Jack was 19, on leave from the Air Force, when he made his first pass down a dragstrip in his El Camino. He drove 100 miles to get to the track in Lubbock, Texas and he still has the timeslip: 93.76 mph / 15.06 seconds. When Jack got out of the Air Force in 1988, he started racing on a semi-regular basis. 

“To me, going to the racetrack was a chance to make the car perform better. You could get instant feedback on your labor, and I loved that,” says Jack. “First, it was all about the time slip. Then I realized you could win a trophy, and that’s all that mattered. When I realized I could win money, then my emphasis shifted to that. The irony is now that I'm a professional racer, it's really come full circle. It's all about the time slip and the trophy now.”

Student Becomes Teacher

As Jack got some racing experience under his belt, he wanted to go faster. So he enrolled at the Frank Hawley Drag Racing School to get a competition license in a faster category. Jack credits Frank for teaching him how to visualize each race, which he still does today to mentally prepare for every run.

“It's driving the funny car without actually sitting in the funny car,” says Jack. “A lot of prep work goes into tracing out different scenarios and visualizing how you would respond to them. There’s literally an infinite number of possibilities in how these cars could malfunction on the racetrack. And most of the time, you’re not quite prepared for when it happens.”

“There’s no time to think,” Jack explains. “It’s all a reaction. So I go back to being a student of the Frank Hawley Drag Racing School. And I visualize as much as I can before a race.”

Jack made just as much of an impression on Frank, who asked him to become an instructor at his racing school. Jack left a lucrative career in the elevator repair industry, and never looked back. 

Jack Beckman continues to work with Frank Hawley to this day as a consultant. Since 1998, he has taught more than 7,000 students, including many who earned their NHRA competition racing license. John Force’s own daughters, Ashley and Brittany, were students of Jack at Frank Hawley’s school.

Getting Back in the Saddle

Jack Beckman’s career was cruising along at top speeds when he won the NHRA Super Comp World Championship in 2003. But life threw him a curveball with a cancer diagnosis later that year. A determined Jack continued to teach at Hawley’s school and race in the Sportsman ranks as he underwent chemotherapy treatments. By the end of 2004, Jack was on the other side of his health battle and remains in remission today.

After a rebuilding year in 2005, Jack got right back behind the wheel as a full-time funny car driver from 2006 to 2020. But when his sponsorship ran out in 2020, and then COVID hit, the shutdown made it impossible to line up new sponsors. Jack found himself back in the elevator trade after a 22-year hiatus. “I don’t live in Indy where most of the nitro teams are, and how in the world was I gonna get back into racing?” Jack asks. “And then the phone rang.”

It was John Force Racing, asking Jack to fill in for John after a devastating accident made him unable to finish the season. Jack said yes “quicker than I could pick the phone up,” he says, and became the replacement driver for John force’s PEAK Antifreeze and Coolant Chevrolet Camaro SS.

Racing for John Force 

Racing in John’s seat has been a great honor for Jack. “Nobody would ever want to see John Force get hurt in a car because he's Superman to so many of us,” says Jack. “And even though I've raced against him a bunch, he could do no wrong in my eyes. I just have always admired him.”

“John is a 100% self-made man,” says Jack. “He's made a lot of other people's careers. He does stuff behind the scenes that not only does he not take credit for, he gets upset if you try to give him credit for it. He's a very altruistic human being and he wants nothing in return.”

Jack was equally honored that PEAK put their faith in him. “For PEAK to give me an enthusiastic thumbs up and say, ‘yeah, this is the guy we want keeping John's seat warm for him,’ that was amazing,” he says. “To be out of the sport for almost four years — and there’s a lot of good drivers out there that were available — but for them to say, ‘we want to put Jack in this car.’ That’s humbling. I mean, it really is humbling. And it’s just a wonderful feeling.” 

Jack finished out the 2024 season for John Force Racing strong, winning the NHRA Midwest Nationals and the In-N-Out Burger NHRA Finals, where he sped to a career best time of 3.812 seconds. So it was no surprise when he was asked to stay in John’s seat for the 2025 season, where he continues to rack up points and victories.

Some Trophies Mean More Than Others

Jack Beckman has a lot of trophies. Thirty nine to be exact. And they all mean something. “There’s not a single trophy on my mantle that I go, well, that one didn’t mean that much. They were all amazing days. You’re standing there with your crew at the end of the day because you’re the best on the property. That’s a great feeling,” he says, adding, “But some mean more than others.”

Jack counts his recent win at the 65th annual Lucas Oil Winternationals in Pomona — his third win since sliding into John Force’s seat — among the special wins. Winning on his home track was great, but handing John Force Racing its 300th Funny Car win was even better.
 

“To come back to Pomona in 2025, knowing John Force Racing was sitting at 299 wins in a Funny Car, and to get to close the deal there, it's just remarkable,” says Jack. “So many friends and family there. And to get a milestone win for John, sometimes it's just hard to put into words how cool things are. And that was one of those days.”

So what’s next for Fast Jack? Not surprisingly, he plans to race “as long as they'll have me and I'm able to do this,” he says. “I'm still that seven-year-old kid in the grandstands at Orange County blown away by these machines. But fast forward to 50 years later and there's a lot of seven-year-old kids coming over and getting my autograph on those PEAK handout cards. Who would want to ever walk away from that?” 

Join the PEAK Squad to follow along on Jack’s next adventure.