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Special Section |
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to double-up with my son [ James Beattie III ] winning a race in Pro Jr. Dragster. He lost in the semifinals, but we’ ll try again starting this weekend, which is great, and I’ m going to try to keep on going and take the No. 1 points position a little farther.”
After completing the Darlington race on Thursday, Beattie qualified No. 2 for the East Coast Nationals on Friday and extended his win streak by four rounds on Saturday, ultimately getting the win over a red-lighting David Cook Jr. in the final round. Beattie ran a 4.170 at 170.17, while Cook posted a quicker 4.163 at 168.87 after going. 004 red.
“ We’ ve been around 632, paid our dues running with an N / A motor, and last year we just had stupid stuff learning the car,” Beattie said.“ We have a total of about 60 runs on this car now between racing and testing, and it’ s still a little bit of a work in progress. But we’ ve got a great tuner, Dave Hanlon. We’ ve got a great motor from Reher-Morrison. We’ ve got Todd and Scott and the guys at the shop as well, doing the transmissions and converters. I’ m always grabbing them, moving
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them all over the place. It all just came together, and two 660 Men is pretty awesome.”
While Beattie was fielding his own car, he was also managing a multicar Jr. Dragster program that includes his son, 2024 PDRA Top Jr. Dragster world champion James Beattie III. That effort also netted the event win in Top Jr. Dragster with driver Kole Paone.
“ We had four Juniors on the other side [ of the pit ] that we run with my son and Richard Tilghman’ s two kids. I brought my girlfriend’ s son down as well, so we ran a bunch of Juniors around the big car,” Beattie said.“ We were able to win in Top Jr. as well with my girlfriend’ s boy and then rack up another one with [ the Pro 632 car ]. Another goal was to win with one of the Juniors, so we’ ll take it. I’ d sure love to be in a winner’ s circle picture with my son in one of them, as would Richard with either of his kids. So that’ s the next goal.”
Having already checked off the team’ s goals of getting a No. 1 qualifier award and a win in Pro 632, Beattie is thrilled with the progress, but he’ s not
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resting. He’ s motivated to stay on top of the class as the series continues into the summer months.
“ We just need to tighten the package up a little more,” Beattie said.“ We didn’ t qualify No. 1. We were right there and we think there’ s a little bit left here and there. We’ re picking at small numbers now. It kind of brings me
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back to my class racing when I’ d run Stock, Super Stock, things like that, where you’ re looking for thousandths, and that’ s where we are. That’ s what’ s fun about 632. The top grouping, everybody’ s right there. It’ s a race four or five guys can win, and I just wish some more people would put them together and come race with us because it’ s fun. It’ s a lot of fun.” |
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