5/15/2023 0 Comments 1968 el camino ss 396![]() ![]() The ElCo was parked for a big-block Super Comp dragster called the “Black Bird.” To tune up his skillsets, he enrolled in the Frank Hawley Drag Racing School, where he met its legendary namesake. The flexible hours and copious overtime pay allowed him fund some nitrous-sniffing 10-teen runs using a roller big-block in the ElCo, but Jack knew if he was to be a hero, he needed something serious. To fund the effort, Jack worked as a Westinghouse Elevator repair man. ![]() The closest track was in Colorado, so Jack would drive 500 miles each way to see the Mile High Nationals and sneak the El Camino out to Lubbock, Texas, for some 15-second runs.Īfter four years, he left the Air Force and returned to California to work on his drag-racing dream. After high school, Jack joined the Air Force to serve as an avionics technician, dragging the car to his station at Cannon AFB in Clovis, New Mexico. ![]() The 1968 El Camino came from Jack’s dad as a second-owner SS396 originally purchased at Rancho Chevrolet in Reseda, California. Hooked on drag racing at age 7 while hanging on the fence at historic digs like Orange County International Raceway and later the high-desert LACR, Jack saw a fuzzy vision of what he could become if it was in the cards. The story of “Fast Jack” and his El Camino goes all the way back to a baseball-playing, skateboarding, skinny kid from California’s San Fernando Valley in the early 1980’s. Or are they? Despite hundreds of hours on national television driving like a hero, catching fire, blowing up, then jumping out of a roof hatch for the interview, Jack Beckman is a regular guy with an amazing life story, and he’s just plain likable. The rich and famous aren’t like the rest of us. Jorge Nunez – Photographer 1968 El Camino SS: Behind the Wheel With NHRA Funny Car Champion “Fast Jack” Beckman Written by Douglas Glad on November 12, 2019 ![]()
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