The following are excerpts from a teleconference featuring NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series drivers Greg Anderson (Pro Stock), Antron Brown (Top Fuel), and Jack Beckman (Funny Car). The drivers recap the first three races in the NHRA Mello Yello Countdown to the Championship as well as the three remaining events.
MODERATOR: Greg Anderson is the driver of the Summit Racing Equipment Chevy Camaro. He is a four-time Pro Stock world champion and currently sits second in points. He’s 72 points behind points leader Erica Enders. Let’s start with Reading. Obviously every time you pull the car out of the trailer, you want to win. That’s the goal of any racer. But now that we start looking at points and going rounds, you race to a runner-up finish. Erica had troubles early in the day. Is there some joy that you could take out of Reading or did that still sting not getting that win?
GREG ANDERSON: Well, definitely some joy but definitely still stings. You’re right on that one. The first two races, actually the first three races I’ve had a great, great, great race car. I’ve had probably the best car on the grounds, and the first two races we went to, Charlotte and St. Louis, Erica just flat did a better job of driving hers, and she won the race and runner-up the next one, basically through car performance and even more importantly on holeshot on her driving end of it. So she’s been driving flawlessly. They had a skip this weekend. They had some engine troubles first and second round, and she ended up going out second round. Opened the door for me to gain some big points on her, and I did gain points, but I didn’t finish it off. I left 20 on the table. I definitely felt I had the best car there and should have won the event, and I slipped in the final round on reaction time and got beat. It’s all on me, and you know, I did make up ground on her and got back in the hunt but could have closed the gap even more by 20, and more importantly got the race win at Reading, which is what I really enjoy doing. I go to these races to try to win them, and I know the championship is important to everybody, and it certainly is here, too, but I live for the minute. I live for the race that I’m at trying to win that race, and I didn’t win it when I should have. It definitely still stings a little bit but got to get my head straight, got to get right. Got three chances left to try to make up that 70-point deficit. The good news is I’ve got the car that can do it. The car has been fast. The car has been getting bonus points at every race I go to for quick qualifying runs, and it’s certainly capable of going the distance on Sunday. I’ve just got to find a way to get myself back on the rails that I’ve slipped off of a little bit these last few faces and get my driving back where it needs to be, and then I think I can give her a serious run for her money. But she’s very tough. She’s not making mistakes and she’s very tough, so it’s going to be a heck of a battle the rest of the way.
MODERATOR: Coming from last season, for those that aren’t familiar, you had the heart surgery, you missed five races, barely missed the Countdown. Going from that to where you are now, kind of looking back on the past 16, 18 months, is this where you thought you would be?
GREG ANDERSON: Well, it’s where I hoped we would be, but the bottom line was last year, yeah, I thought we could make up enough points to get in the Countdown, but the bottom line was we just struggled with the performance of the race car a little bit. Even if I would have made the Countdown, I probably had just about zero chances of winning it anyway. So we’re going to call last year a rebuilding year, but this year has been a completely different story. My guys have done a whale of a job with the race car. They’ve got the performance better all through the year, and it absolutely is right now the baddest car out there. They’ve given me everything I need to go ahead and win races and win this championship, and it’s up to me to carry the rest of the ball over the goal line, and I’ve stumbled on the 1-yard line the last couple of races out, so I need to find a way to punch it in the end zone these last three races, and I think I can get it done. But completely different year than last year. I certainly feel better. I feel great, and the heart is wonderful. Got a second lease on this deal, and I’m trying to make the most of it, and I’ve got every piece of equipment I need to get it done. I just need to finish my end of the bargain.
Q. After winning four championships and being right there in the thick of it this year, how does this run at the championship differ? Does it feel different than the other four?
GREG ANDERSON: It is very different. Not only am I older, but like I said, I went through that complete rebuilding year last year. There were certainly times there where I wondered if I’d ever be able to get in a race car again and drive one, let alone compete for a championship. I’m a very lucky man, and you know, everything is on a silver platter for me to go ahead and capitalize on it and go back to the top again, which I had no earthly idea if I’d ever be able to do again. So very special, very unique opportunity, and you know, at this point in my career, you just never know when it’s going to be your last race or last championship, so you’ve got to try and make the most of it, and I would like nothing better than to finish this year off on top. It would be a great story for me personally and all my support group here, what we’ve gone through the last year and a half. It would really be a neat story, I think, here at the shop. It would probably be my most special championship ever if I can get it done.
Q. Scott touched on last year and that you didn’t make the Countdown, but even though you didn’t, you gained a tremendous amount of respect from the fans in that there was a couple times that Jason could have laid down and opened that door for you to get into the championship, but you guys raced heads up, and you gained a lot of respect from a lot of people for that. Has anybody mentioned that before?
GREG ANDERSON: Well, it certainly gets mentioned both ways. No matter who wins, everybody is always going to think somebody purposely laid down for somebody, but no, we don’t do that. We’ve never done that and we’re not going to start at this point in our career. You’ve got to have pride in what you do, you know, and if we’re going to go on and win a championship, you don’t want an asterisk by it. You don’t want somebody saying, well, it was half handed to you, so you want nothing to do with that. We’ve been able to win it before and absolutely earn it on our own, and that’s the only way it should be done, so that’s the way it is. We are teammates, but we are separate. We’re separate entities, and he’s won championships, I’ve won championships, and in those years that we’ve won or lost we’ve had to go head to head with each other. A lot of times, yes, those have decided who’s going to be the champion. But that’s the way it should be. You’ve got to feel good about yourself at the end of the day, and you’ve got to feel good about that win, that championship that you won, and it’s that asterisk thing that they always talk about. You don’t want that next to your name.
Q. Greg, from what you were saying and from what I’ve gleaned from all these great champions in the past and the present, it’s hard to try harder at this level. Is there a best way to approach every round when it has that Countdown intensity?
GREG ANDERSON: Well, there is, and unfortunately I haven’t found that formula. I’ve dropped the ball the first three races of this championship. I should be certainly closer to the lead or even in the lead if I had done my job as a driver. The best thing I can come up with, I’ve certainly been doing a lot of soul searching and trying to figure out where I’ve gone wrong and gone off the rails, but the thing that I can point my finger at, absolutely, when it comes down to crunch time, down to championship time, you do, whether it’s purposely or not, you try harder. You think more about it. There’s more on the line. You can’t get it out of your mind, and you try harder.
If that doesn’t work — which sometimes that does work; sometimes when extra pressure is added, it seems like sometimes you do a better job. But it’s been the opposite for me in this Countdown. So somehow, some way, I’ve got to figure out how to get it out of my mind and forget about that there’s a championship on the line and just tell myself when I wheel on up there that I’m a lucky guy and I’m about to wheel a really cool hotrod down the racetrack and enjoy the ride and have fun with it and not worry about anything else, and that’s when I’m going to get my best result. It’s a different deal. You try and figure out what you want to do every time you go up there, but lately as it’s worked out for me, I need to be at ease and I need to not think about it and need to not worry about it. In the past there’s been times that I’ve pressed harder and got more angry, gritted my teeth more, whatever you want to call it, got more psyched up, and that’s worked out, but it’s not working right now, so time to find a plan B, and plan B for me is going to be to get it out of my mind what’s on the line.
Q. That’s a good analysis, good mental analysis. Is there a way to share your championship ability, say, if you were trying to give advice to others?
GREG ANDERSON: Well, like I said, there’s several different ways of going about this, and obviously people watching from the sideline think, man, how could you have had a reaction like that; how could you have handled that? Did you fall asleep? Were you not trying? And quite honestly it’s the opposite. Sometimes you just try too hard, you press too hard and you tense up too much, and when you tense your muscles up they don’t work too good. It’s hard to explain to people, but you’ve got to do what got you there, and what got you there is just going to race and just relaxing and having fun and going out and making runs in your race car. It works good in qualifying, and come race day, things seem to change, and that’s why, because you tense up and you put too much pressure on yourself. It’s a mind deal. It’s absolutely 100 percent in your mind, it’s mind over matter. You’ve got to decide to yourself, you know, what kind of mindset you want to have when you get up there, and everybody is different, but for me right now, it’s going to be just basically to relax, have fun, put a smile on my face and enjoy the ride.
Q. Where are you going to relax and just let racing go this weekend so you can just clear your mind?
GREG ANDERSON: I haven’t figured out what I’m going to do yet this weekend, but it’s probably not going to be anything too high tech. There’s a big NASCAR race in town this weekend; the Charlotte NASCAR race is down this weekend. I’m probably going to stay as far away from racing activity as I can. I’m going to do something that’s not near a racetrack, not racing involved, and get my mind completely off of it, so when I get back next week to Dallas, I’ll want to go racing again. And sometimes — I love to race as much as anybody, and a lot of times I say I wish we could race every week, but sometimes you’ve got to get away from it and see life. Racers, we’ve kind of got blinders on sometimes; we think there’s nothing more important in life than going to that racetrack and racing our cars. But there is. There’s other things more important, and I’m going to do something that my family enjoys this weekend that gets my mind completely off of racing so when I get to Dallas I’ll be hungry again and I’ll want to get back in that race car.
Q. Okay, so my thought that I might text you tonight when there are several Cup drivers who get a chance to run down ZMAX Dragway, you’re not going to be there?
GREG ANDERSON: I’m not going to be there. I did get an invite. They actually wanted to bring our cars over, make a couple of exhibition runs for those guys, but I’m not going to do that. I’m going to stay away from the racetrack for a while and recharge our batteries.
Q. Looking at your teammate Jason Line, he has some uncharacteristic first-round losses in Charlotte and St. Louis, lost in the second round in Reading. Are you guys trying anything different with that program, or is it just — they’ve been close racing, but has it just been missing it just a little bit?
GREG ANDERSON: Yeah, unfortunately we’ve just been off with his race car for the last really two, three months. Somehow we lost our way with his race car and the performance hasn’t been there. When the performance isn’t there, sometimes you get a little crossed up in your mind, too, and you get dejected, you get disgusted, and you’re struggling to drive again.
So it’s been a little bit of both. He’s struggled a little bit on the driving end and lost a few races on holeshots, but more times than not for the last two, three months, we haven’t had the performance in his car, and I think we’ve finally turned the corner this weekend and learned some things about what we’ve been doing wrong on his car. So we fully expect when we get to Dallas we’re going to have three team cars – myself, Jason and Bo Butner – that can qualify in the top three, four, and have a chance of beating anybody we race out there and trying to knock some of the competition out of our way. Excited about getting to Dallas. I think finally we’ll have three equal cars, and when that happens, Jason’s mind comes right back into focus, too, and he becomes a great driver. Looking forward to the future for him, too.
Q. The race at the Motorplex was moved from September to October to make it more comfortable for the fans and I guess to improve performance for the cars and everything. Do you see that as playing into your hand given your past success at the Motorplex?
GREG ANDERSON: Well, I can tell you one thing, it’s going to be more fun to race that way. When it’s hot and sweaty and greasy out there, yes, like you said, it’s tough on the fans, but it’s certainly tough on us, too. It’s not fun buckling into that race car with all that fire suit and helmet on when it’s 95 degrees. I’m glad they did that, and I’m excited that it’s going to be another super-fast track as part of the Countdown. Those are the ones we enjoy the most. We’ve had great success through the summer racing in the hot conditions, so I’ve got a car that does like hot conditions, also, but personally as a driver and as a racer, it’s a whole lot more fun to race when it’s comfortable out there and the race cars run faster. That’s what we’re all about as racers. We want to go as fast as we can, and the cooler the conditions, the better the conditions, the better we can run. So looking forward to getting to Dallas in real good conditions.
Q. It’s the 30th anniversary of the Fall Nationals, and when that track came online it was credited for changing the way NHRA did business, et cetera. Is that the way that you still look at that 30 years later, where the Motorplex stands?
GREG ANDERSON: Absolutely. It started it all. The Motorplex name was perfect for it, and a lot of people have followed suit ever since, and now we’ve got a lot of great facilities on the circuit. It definitely started there. It’ll always be the Motorplex, and it’s held up through, what has it been, 20-some years or whatever it’s been since it came around, and it’s still just as good a race surface as it ever was. It’s still fun to go there. It’s still fun to call it the Motorplex, and absolutely, it started the game. It started the ball rolling.
MODERATOR: Next up we do have Antron Brown, driver of the Matco Tools Dragster. Antron is definitely on a roll right now becoming the first driver to win the first three events in the Countdown to the Championship. He currently leads teammate and defending Top Fuel champ Tony Schumacher by 94 points. Antron, looking back at this weekend in Reading, you were able to get your third consecutive win as a track that you had never won before, your second home track. How much did that mean for you just to get that win there at Reading this weekend?
ANTRON BROWN: It was huge for us to get that win there. You know, this year has been kind of crazy because we’ve been winning at the tracks that we normally don’t win at. Our team is just in that element right now where we’ve got that full mindset of focus on where we’ve been hungry all year long, and we’ve been in attack mode. We’ve been attacking every race. And just now, right when we’re coming off the Western Swing, we started getting our cars seasoned, Brian (Corradi, co-crew chief) and Mark (Oswald, co-crew chief) and the rest of the Matco boys have been getting the car seasoned for this Countdown, and we’re just starting to peak at the right time and hit our full stride and we’re all just giving it all we got because of how tough the competition is. The competition has been at an all-time high, and we just can’t go out there and slack, we’ve got to go out there and give it all we’ve got.
MODERATOR: You talked about your team; what type of swagger does that give you going into a Friday night qualifying session or coming into the track on Sunday, when you look at your crew guys and you look them in the eyes? What does that give you as a driver?
ANTRON BROWN: It gives you a great deal of confidence because you can see how they’re like — how they’re putting everything together, where it’s just clicking, and like all the puzzle pieces are just falling in the right places. They’re gluing the seams to perfection, and when you see that as a driver, you’re just like, all right. You get that synergy inside yourself where you go out and do well, and you know as a driver you have to put your work in just like the crew puts their work in. While they’re working hard at that race car you’ve got to be working hard on what’s your package, keeping yourself right. And that’s what we’ve been doing is we’ve been working hard as a group, as a whole, all of us putting our best foot forward, and then when you get together you see that team working together like they are, you’re able to sit back and go, you know what, man, it gives you that extra emotional and mental confidence that you need to go out there and do what you need to do as a driver. When I go up there, I’ve got my radio on in my helmet, I hear Mark and Brian talking to Brad (Mason), our assistant crew chief, talking to Mike (O’Guin), the clutch guy, talking to Kyle (Weekley) who does the cylinder heads, and they’re out there talking and mixing and mingling and keeping all the stuff together, and you’re just like, all right, I like what I hear, you know what I mean, and you go up to that start line and you’re ready to get it on because there’s no stutter and there’s no second-guessing. They’re like, the track feels like this, it feels good here, we’re going to line up here, and you hear Brian and Mark talking, we’re going to do this with the flows, we’re going to do that, we’re going to do that. Like they’ve got their playbook, like an NFL football coach, and they’re like, we’re going to mix this with that and that, and we want to do this, and we should be good. We’re going pick out a little bit here and there, and then you go down the track, and that’s exactly what they’re doing, and when you get into that kind of mode, that’s when you become a real strong contender and a strong team like we’ve been for these last three races.
Q. Antron, I was fortunate to talk to Kevin Harvick before last week, before he won the race that he needed to win, and he was just so calm and relaxed, taking questions on a teleconference like this, and you know, it just kind of struck me that every round you guys go through, you know, you face that elimination thing, and now with the intensity of the Countdown and everything, you know, how do you handle pressure? You guys seem to handle pressure better than the rest of us mortals.
ANTRON BROWN: Well, you know what it is is that through the experience that we’ve been through it, what we tend to do is we just focus on the things that are right in front of us. Like we’re not looking like, you know — years prior we got to the Countdown, and I can tell you that we thought about the whole Countdown, and it messes your mindset up of what’s right in front of you. It’ll cost you things that you normally don’t do, you typically don’t do. The thing about it is if you’re already putting forth a great effort and what got you success, what can you change and make that better. You get what I mean? The only thing you can do is you can try harder, which is going to mess you up. You’re only going to be as good as what you’ve prepared yourself to already be. There’s no magic switch to switch on. There’s no extra adrenaline to kick up here. You’ve got to go in there already ready like you’ve been practicing all year for this, and that’s what our team has. We have raced — I can honestly sit here and tell you guys that we raced every race this year to the best of our ability. We did not once say that we’re using this race for a test session. We’re going to use it for this. We say after the race it’s a test, but we used every moment like it’s real time game mode in the Countdown, and that’s what’s really helped us out because we’re able to hone, and we actually got better after every race that we learn where we made our mistake at, where we pressed too hard, when we didn’t press as hard enough. So then we started getting scientifical and we started breaking it down, and that’s the way you deal with pressure. The higher the stakes, if you’ve prepared yourself for it, you’re able to handle and adapt to it a lot quicker and better, and that’s what we learned from the past is not to go out there and try. We go out there and do what we know how to do and prepare before it comes.
Q. And Harvick also mentioned that one of the reasons why he looks at things a lot different now is because what was real pressure for him was when he took over that car when Earnhardt died. Was there anything in your past, you came from motorcycles into the fast seat you’re into now. Is there anything in your past that was just so much more intense that it just makes you be able to handle these things so well?
ANTRON BROWN: Well, I think to be honest with you, through all the different — I was a competitor at an early age. I raced motocross since I was a little kid, dirt bikes. And then I went from there with my dad and uncle when they were racing their Sportsman cars, and then I played every stick-and-ball sport there is from baseball to football to running track to playing soccer, and I think running track and field at the college level, there is a serious sense of pressure when you’re running at the level that I ran at in college, and then to come over in Pro Stock Motorcycle once you get in drag racing, it’s the same intense sport, where it’s all or nothing. You have no do-overs, you have no second lap. You know what I mean? It’s all or nothing on the start line, and how you run that one race, and it’s a sprint. That’s what drag racing is. NHRA racing is a sprint.
I think that it’s just something that I just grew up and did through my whole career, and then it’s the team you surround yourself by. When you surround yourself with great guys like we have on our team, we do it together, it gives you that much more confidence as a whole. Somebody by their self can’t accomplish great things, but if you put a group of great people, you can accomplish some unbelievable, remarkable and world-setting things because each other helps each other push each other to that next level, and that’s something that I’ve learned over the years of all the sports that I’ve been through with great teams, and that’s what happens.
Q. The only thing about the Motorplex is that Tony Schumacher has had a lot of success there, too, your teammate. He considers it his home track now. I suppose you’re very much aware this is probably Tony wants to make up some ground there big time?
ANTRON BROWN: Oh, absolutely, and the thing about it is the Motorplex has always been a special place for me. I thought you were talking about St. Louis, I’m sorry about that. The Motorplex has always been a special place for me because that was my first race win on Pro Stock Motorcycles back in 1999, my first win ever that I ever won was at the Motorplex on Pro Stock Motorcycles, with Troy Vincent days and era. That place always has a special place in my heart. We’ve won there once, but Tony is an animal, man. That U.S. Army team, Mike Green (crew chief) and Neal (Strausbaugh, assistant crew chief), the two people who run the car, they know how to win. They know how to put it together, and they work very great in high-pressure situations where, you know, at the end of the day you can never count them out. We had like a 160- or 180-point lead with two races left and everybody wrote them off. We didn’t write them off, but they came out and they’re just like animals where we’re nitro racing cars, where you can go out there, we have three races in a row, now we can go out there, something could break on our car and we could lose the first round of the last three races in a row, and if Tony goes to the final in all those, he wins the championship. You know what I mean? That’s how that Army team rolls. We’ve won three races and yet we’re still only 90 points ahead of Tony. And that’s what I always said, we’re only 90 points ahead of him because we’re working hard, but the guy knows how to win. He knows how to get it done, and that’s the hard part about it is that we’ve got to remain focused and keep doing what we do because we can peel off three wins without a doubt.
Q. Antron, going into last Sunday’s first round of practice, it’s green as grass, no one really knows what to expect, how do you mentally prepare yourself to be ready for anything that can happen in a situation like that?
ANTRON BROWN: You can’t. You’ve just got to go out there and do exactly what we did out there. We just went out there, and our most important thing was we were just trying to get down the track. We were literally just trying to get down the racetrack, and literally trying to get down the racetrack for the first run because that was our first qualifying run without overdoing it, and having the power level right, the clutch right, and Mark and Brian doing what they do, they went through a notebook, and man, they dug deep, and the guys put their heads down, and once we made it down that track that first run, that’s what really — it turned the corner for us and really helped us out tremendously. You know what I mean? It really helped us out a lot to get it right, you know what I mean? Once we did that, we’re off to the races.
Q. How after winning three races do you not get overconfident? But you already answered that because Schumacher is only 90 points behind you.
ANTRON BROWN: Absolutely, and I mean, you just can’t get that way in our sport, especially in nitro cars. In any type of racing, because the way the competition has been right now has just been incredibly tough. Tough, where I mean, look at the race I had with Dixon and (indiscernible). She runs a 71, we run a 71. And then look at the race we had with Billy Torrence in St. Louis and Tony and the rest of them were all running low 70s. I mean, every car out there, even part-time cars, we raced Bob Lagana, he’s only been in his Top Fuel car I think not even once. He raced a Funny Car all this year, he comes out there and he comes out there and he runs a 78. I mean, all these teams are coming out now and they’re not playing no more. Everybody has got the technology, everybody has got the resources, and everybody is putting them to use because they want to win. There’s no more people talking about doing it, they’re about it now, and you have to raise and elevate yourself, and that’s what I think is making our NHRA racing so exciting and so fun right now is that we’re all just raising that level to an all-time high right now.
Q. You’ve had a couple of days. Have you sat down with your grandma and seen how she is with this win, because this is a great win for your family?
ANTRON BROWN: Yes. I mean, it was a great win for the fam, and my grandmom really, really enjoyed it. It’s always good when you can win when grandmom is there, because my grandmom has really been instrumental in all of our racing, the success of our whole family from my dad to my uncle to everybody. You know what I mean? It’s just like to be there with her, she’s 82 years old now, and from the time I was a little kid she was at every one of my races growing up as a kid, from racing dirt bikes to bicycles, everything, running track and field, and that’s what makes it special when you can do it as a family. To do it there at Maple Grove at a track that’s really close to home for us, you know, that’s what makes it very, very special, and we love it. I love it, like being out there with the family. And Reading was a track that we’ve been trying to win for the last I don’t know how many years; you know what I mean? It’s been crazy. It’s been very crazy.
Q. How young were you, and was it your idea or a family member’s idea, for you to get behind some — and drive something that you could race?
ANTRON BROWN: Oh, man, I’ll tell you what. You wouldn’t believe the crazy stuff I used to do when I was a kid. If I told you, you would laugh at me. I used to do some — I used to be 10 years old and I rode my uncle’s big motorcycle. He had a 1000 I couldn’t even stand up on. They put me on it, and they held the bike up and I took off and drove it down the street. So from doing that to driving bulldozers, tractors, dump trucks, all that kind of stuff, if it had wheels or tracks or something with a steering wheel, I drove it. That’s just how it was. You know what I mean? It’s just like down in the country in Chesterfield, New Jersey, and I grew up, you know, I was an inner city kid and then my grandpa passed away and we moved to the country to help my grandma with the family business. I just grew up doing a lot of stuff, and if I didn’t have that kind of upbringing, I probably wouldn’t be at where I’m at today because it taught me how when you work hard then it pays off in the long-term where you get the results that we have as a team today and you always keep on working. You never stop working, and you never stop learning and growing.
Q. You seem to be streaky. I know that you’ve won three here, you’ve swept the Western Swing in the past; how do you maintain a streak once you get it started?
ANTRON BROWN: The way you — I mean, that’s a tough question, but I think what happens when you get on a roll or you get on a streak like that, I think what really, really happens is that it’s the momentum that builds. Like when you have all those back-to-back races, you just carry the same attitude, what got you the first race to the second race. Then it carries from the second race to the third race, and if you can have them all in a row, you can keep bringing that same attitude back with you. I think that’s what really helps you keep wins coming because when you focus the way you did at the first race, you know, changed the formula, it usually helps you out to the next race. And the thing about it is, what a lot of people don’t understand, is when you go laps like we do, that’s like free practice that you can’t offer where you’re getting more — the crew chiefs and the crews are getting more times with the car on the racetrack. The driver is seeing the light and stepping on the gas pedal more times than the other cars. So the more laps you get, the better and stronger the team gets. If you only make a couple laps a week, that’s the only time you’re really practicing. You get what I’m saying? That’s what helps keep the streak alive, that you’re seeing that tree, you’re seeing the racetrack, and the crew chiefs are tuning the car with more laps, giving them more reps to get better each and every time, and I think that’s the key element that keeps a streak going or you win more rounds, and you go into that round with a little bit of confidence where — what I mean confidence, you’re poised. Like you’re calm, cool, collected, and you’re humble, and you’re able to attack it the same, you know, get over — but the thing about it, to keep it going, you can’t get cocky, you can’t get conceited, you can’t overlook people; you’ve to attack each round like it’s your last round, and that’s what helps keep it going.
Q. It sounds like you said it builds your confidence when you’re on a roll like that. Does it decrease the pressure?
ANTRON BROWN: I don’t know if it — like the bad part, I think it increases the pressure because once you start it, you want more of it. It’s kind of like when you’re sitting at that table and you just had that last bit of that good filet mignon at that steak table, you want another bite of it, so you want more. You know what I mean? That’s the problem with it. You got a piece of that steak, you want some more. It’s like you got the cake and now you want another piece of cake, and the cake is all gone. You know?
Q: Jack Beckman joins us. Jack at Charlotte and St. Louis, probably not the results you guys were looking for. When you went into Reading, what was your mindset when you guys pulled into the track last weekend?
JACK BECKMAN: Well, I said in the media a week and a half ago that we were probably going to have to set the national record and win the race to have a chance at getting back in the points, and certainly if Del (Worsham) had put any more distance between him and us, we probably weren’t going to have any chance at the championship. When qualifying got shortened because of the weather to one session, I thought that the national record was going to be off the table. I don’t know that I could have hoped for the outcome that we got where we actually made up 103 points, which is slightly more than five rounds, on Del, and I think it just basically put us right back in the championship. It was pretty demoralizing to give up 178 points to the second-place car when they reset the Countdown, and I think we gave up a 340-point lead to Del and then go stumble at the first two races and have Del do almost perfect out there. But now we’re going to make it a race again.
Q. The Motorplex has been moved back a month, the race there, for cooler temperatures and more comfortable conditions for the fans and the racers. I know Jimmy Prock (crew chief) has a ton of notes from the Motorplex. Are you guys going for another national record to be the fourth of the year?
JACK BECKMAN: That’s more a Jimmy Prock question. You know, we literally don’t sit down and discuss all the minutiae of this every day, and I’m not in Indianapolis to be around those guys, but I’m going to tell you what his answer is going to be: If the conditions will give us that, we will go for that. And if they won’t, we won’t take a chance on wasting a qualifying run because there’s still those qualifying bonus points out there that could ultimately decide the championship. You know, certainly we all were licking our chops going into Maple Grove, and then the weather intervened, and my goodness, the bump spot ended up being 28 seconds there, and there was only one car that made a representative qualifying run. I think it goes to show that the best-laid plans don’t always come to fruition, and we are still very much at the mercy of Mother Nature and the racetrack. It should be exciting that Dallas is going back to a time in the year similar to when they first ran that race in 1986, and I was at that inaugural race. I drove 500 miles one way from my Air Force base to sit in the stands and watch that race, and that race yielded the quickest Top Fuel pass of all time, and that track was unlike any other back in that era. There were no super tracks. It really set the benchmark for it. We’re going to race for the trophy, and if the national record is on the table and reachable, you bet your butt we’re going to go for it because that’s 20 more points.
Q. You already spoke to this a little bit, but how did the Motorplex change NHRA? Still there, standing with the towers and everything. How did that change the way the NHRA does business?
JACK BECKMAN: I can tell you from my perspective, I remember driving up on it in 1986, and it’s out in the middle of nowhere, and out in the distance you see something that resembles more a baseball stadium than what would have been considered a contemporary dragstrip, and it even has this digital sign out in front, and it was just so different. It took us to a new level, and I think it showed the other racetrack operators and potential racetrack developers what they needed to compete against. You know, lately you could say Bruton Smith has done similar things with Las Vegas and now Charlotte, and I think our fans have come to expect a higher standard of facilities, and it probably started there with Billy Meyer’s place in 1986.
Q. Just very simple: I’m sure your kids don’t know the excitement of your win and everything, but how did your wife act when you got home and you had the win and the national record behind it?
JACK BECKMAN: No different. I mean, Jenna used to race, and so I think she kind of gets the pressures and the highs and the lows of it, but the reality is when I’m on the road, she’s basically a single mother raising an eight-year old and a four-year old, and she home schools my son Jason, so she’s busy. So I think the deal is as soon as I get home, it’s a list. Layla has got to go to gymnastics; Jason has got to go to baseball practice, and I’m a coach. There’s really not a whole lot of time to celebrate. Her and her mother tune in to ESPN3 and get the live update on the races, and I’m sure they whooped and hollered and my son did, too. My daughter Layla doesn’t have the faintest clue about what I do, and that’s okay. You know, I think it’s far more important for me when I come home to be a good husband and a dad rather than a winning or losing race car driver.
Q. Jack, I’ve been asking about the Countdown intensity and pressure. What’s your take on trying harder and trying to make up that 16 points that’s in the way to the top?
JACK BECKMAN: You know, I just don’t get that whole trying harder thing because that means that you haven’t been giving it your all up to that point. I just — I truly don’t understand some of the hyperbole and the sports clichés that people use and try to apply to drag racing. I get as a football player going into the fourth quarter and you’re exhausted and you can’t feel your legs that there’s a level of motivation and maybe get some adrenaline going so you can just function at a high level for one more play. We floor the throttle on a race car and try to hold it in the groove for four seconds and then safely slow it down. The demands on us are completely different. They’re very unique. They are potentially stressful, but I try my hardest every time. I try my hardest in qualifying. I’m just going to continue to do that every single time they tighten the harnesses on me, and that’s as good as I can do.
Q. Do you have the ability to — you have these abilities, obviously; can you share those easily with others?
JACK BECKMAN: Sure, yeah. I taught it for 10 years, and I think I’m a really good teacher because I’m a really average person. I’m not a quick learner; I struggle with things. I probably don’t have what many would consider a quintessential athlete’s mind. I think Antron probably has that. But because I’m a mere mortal, and because I know what it’s like to struggle and overcome that, I think I can relate that very well into words and help somebody else find that level of performance.
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