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At the season-opening KTR Drag Racing Carolina Nationals presented by Pee Dee Fleet at Darlington Dragway, half of the drivers in Pro 632 dipped into the 4.10s, but Beattie separated himself from that pack with a 4.127-second pass at 172.55 mph. That pass in the final qualifying session was enough to give Beattie his first career No. 1 qualifier award.
“ It’ s been a long time coming for us,” Beattie said.“ We’ ve tried for three years now. We started with N / A [ naturally aspirated ]. We waited almost two years on a motor, which is well worth the wait now. We stuck it in the car for Bristol last year and came out swinging. Had very few
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passes on the car and really learned a lot. Made a bunch of mistakes, but Reher-Morrison and Brad [ Morgan ] put together a really good piece. I’ ve got an awesome tuner and the car was a bracket car with a. 14 to a. 17, and then we turned it up for the final qualifier. It took it. I knew as soon as it got past 60 feet, I think I was already pretty excited, and I saw the. 12 pop up. I was like,‘ All right, we got it.’”
Beattie carried that performance into eliminations, but cold temperatures led to the postponement of the semis and finals to the next stop on tour, the Summit Racing Equipment East Coast Nationals presented by FuelTech at
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Darana Motorsports Park – Benson, NC. When racing resumed, Beattie earned a confidenceboosting semifinal win over twotime |
and defending world champion Jeff Melnick with a 4.179 before taking a side-by-side win over Jeff Pittman in the final round. Pittman left first, but Beattie fired off a 4.117 at 172.72 to drive around Pittman’ s 4.136 at 171.01. It was Beattie’ s first career win in Pro 632 competition.
“ Well, we had to wait a few weeks, and last time we ran [ Jeff ] Melnick, the two-time champion, he got us, so I was hoping it was our turn – and it was – to beat him in the semis and then go on to the finals,” Beattie said in the winner’ s circle.“ We had a goal of qualifying No. 1 and winning a race, and we checked those off quick. We want
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54 PDRA660. com |