John Beckett, 52, born a NJ Yankee as Lionel likes to say. Married 26
years, two children, one 23 and married the other 21 and in College. Like
many of us a High School car nut. Some of my early cars were at '27 T coupe,
'55 Nomad, '59 Corvette and a slew of '57 Chebbys with bruising 301's. After
college worked for American Motors Corp and various Dealerships 7 years. Ran
a '67 Mustang and later a Hurst SCRambler (what else) at the drags in Super
Stock in the early 70's.
Auto mechanics teacher 23 years. Started off in a Vocational High School
in NJ. Then went overseas and spent three years teaching the Bedouins in
Saudi Arabia the finer points of mechanics. Now that was an experience, you
think Texas gets hot in the summer! not hardly. It actually rained twice in
three years. Moved to Western North Carolina mountains after Saudi (to many
people back in NJ). After building our house in NC I landed a job at a local
Technical College teaching again.
First trip to Bonneville was 1989 with a student and we worked as a
course stewards for the SCTA. Built my first coupe, at the College, and ran
it in 1990 with students as crew. We went a blistering 201 MPH on, I
believe, a 206 MPH record at the time (with one of those old style Chevy
301's). If I wasn't hooked after my first trip I was after that meet and
have been going back, on an annual pilgrimage, ever since.
Started the East Coast Timing Association in 1995 with Tom Sarda. Tom
and I were extremely frustrated after we couldn't get our yearly dose of
Salt due to rain outs at Bonneville in '93 & '94. So we tried to find a
location where we could have speed trials on the East Coast frequently
enough to satisfy our need for speed. What an experience that's been, with
lots of new racers coming out who now have an opportunity to run LSR events
without traveling to Utah. It's been very rewarding to see ECTA grow and
mature.
My next two goals at Bonneville are to get my AA license. I'm only about
10 MPH from doing so. Second is to eventually go 300 MPH. After that we will
see about some new goals. 400 MPH??? Who knows. We have a new car in the
works (been in the works for over a year now) hopefully we can have it ready
for Speed Week 2001.
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