"I think our car and our team should have won three races by now," Beckman said. "I replaced Whit Bazemore over here, and the guy, I mean tomorrow he could get back in a Funny Car and be one of the top three drivers in the class. I'm on a steep learning curve, and I've definitely been the weakest link, so to get our first win of the year is huge.

"This couldn't have come at a better time. We were lingering down there in 10th or 11th place in the points, but we've been coming on for the last five races or so. The Countdown makes you look at things a little differently, but you still come into a race with the same purpose -- you want to win."

Combined with the unlikely loss of second-place points earner Robert Hight to Scott Kalitta in the quarterfinals, Capps padded his Funny Car points lead to 154 with his sixth final-round showing of the year. Beckman padded his seventh-place perch in the Countdown rankings as he now leads eighth-place Cruz Pedregon by 90 markers.

Given up on a few races ago, 14-time world champion Force is just 16 points behind Pedregon in ninth place.

Allen Johnson

Johnson has four other Pro Stock wins, but this one might be the most meaningful as it came with his mother and father on the starting line at a race of their team's title sponsor. Earlier this year, Johnson's father, Roy, who builds his engines, suffered two heart attacks the weekend of the Phoenix event that left him momentarily dead on the table. Amazingly, he returned to work three days later.

Johnson certainly wasn't leaving anything to chance in his final against a suddenly resurrected Krisher, leaving with a .018-second light in his J&J Racing/Team Mopar Dodge Stratus R/T and zooming to a 7.132, 192.47. Krisher, who switched to Victor Cagnazzi horsepower last weekend, zinged the transmission in the first gear change. Prior to this race, he had failed to qualify at 11 straight races.

"Everything you can do, we've done this weekend," Johnson said. "You couldn't ask for more. That one race in Phoenix was a setback for all of us, but Dad's come back better than ever, and we've been a win waiting to happen ever since.

"We've tested our butts off, and the guys have put in some real long hours at the shop. I feel like we've come together as a team. Going into the final, we knew Ron would be tough because they'd been running strong all day. We might have got a break because I only went 192, so we probably wounded our motor, but Ron broke a transmission early on, so we got the win."

Matt Smith

Smith pushed his lead in Pro Stock Motorcycle to triple digits after running the table in Denver -- racing from the No. 1 qualifying position to the winner's circle on his Torco/Skull Gear S&S Buell V-Twin. It was his second win of the year in six final-round showings.

This one was over at the starting line when U.S. Army racer Angelle Sampey left early by .047-second to disqualify herself. Smith raced through the scoreboards with a 7.400, 177.81 just to be sure.

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