this was in the Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer on Sunday:
http://www.fayettevillenc.com/story.php?Template=sports&Story=7131617Laurinburg racer lived in the fast lane
By Brett Friedlander
Staff writer
The afternoon heat shimmered across the seemingly endless miles of pure white Utah salt as John Beckett climbed into his bright yellow race car last Saturday.
If the 58-year-old Laurinburg man could have picked a way to ride off into the sunset, this was it.
"John left the line with a smile on his face," Keith Turk, a friend and fellow driver, said. "It was his dream to race on the Bonneville Salt Flats."
Beckett, a veteran racer who founded the East Coast Timing Association and helped build a land speed track in Maxton, had been coming to the legendary speedway every year since 1992.
He was there this time for the Bonneville National Speedweek, an annual event that draws more than 400 entries and crowds in excess of 20,000 spectators. Among the members of his crew were David and Alex Locklear of Lumberton.
Beckett was a little more than halfway through his run on the 7-mile "long" course when he lost control of his hand-built 1930s Crosley competition coupe at a speed approaching 260 mph. The car rolled several times before coming to a rest with Beckett still strapped into the driver's seat.
He was pulled from the car by paramedics at the scene, but was pronounced dead a short time later. The cause of the accident is still being investigated, race director Roy Creel said in a prepared statement.
Turk, who was back at the starting line preparing one of his cars to race, said he feared the worst as soon as he heard news of the crash on the CB radio.
"One of the officials who was down there said it was bad," Turk recalled. "At the kind of speed he was going, I knew he was dead."
Even after news of Beckett's death had been confirmed, Turk decided not to tell his driver, Ted Wenz.
Instead, he strapped him into the car, patted him on the back and sent him down the same course once the wreckage of Beckett's car was cleared and the track reopened almost 90 minutes later.
Wenz responded with a clean run timed at 253 mph.
"We're racers," said Joe Timney, who succeeded Beckett as president of the ECTA, primarily so that Beckett could spend less time on his administrative duties and more time driving. "We came here to race.
"John was a friend, a partner and to a couple of us, an inspiration. Without him, a lot of us wouldn't be out on the salt right now. I think he would have wanted us to keep going."
In a 2002 interview, Beckett said that he had wanted to become a racer for as long as he could remember.
But unlike most youngsters growing up in the South, his heroes weren't Richard Petty, David Pearson and the other stars of the NASCAR ovals. He idolized land speed demons the likes of Craig Breedlove and Art Arfons.
Lifelong dream
Instead of dreaming about driving the high-banked turns of Daytona, he fantasized about running full-out on the salt-covered straights of Utah.
"I used to read Hot Rod magazine as a kid and was always fascinated with Bonneville," he said. "In '89, I decided to just go see what went on there for myself and just fell in love with it."
Beckett's passion for speed was the reason he helped start the ECTA about a decade ago.
Frustrated by the fact that conditions in Bonneville were favorable for racing only a few weeks each fall, he and Tom Sarda of Burlington set up a course of their own on the runway at the old Laurinburg-Maxton Airport.
Tribute planned
Six meets a year are held there, with the next one scheduled for Sept. 24-25. Timney said that a tribute to Beckett is being planned.
Because of the work involved in staging the events and keeping the track in racing condition, Beckett moved to Laurinburg from his native Asheville in 2001. He taught auto mechanics, paint, body work and fabrication at the Robeson County Career Center. He was also planning to start a motorsports training program in Myrtle Beach, with his friend Max Sarvis.
"Building cars and making them go fast was something my dad was very passionate about and people picked up on that passion," said Beckett's son, John-Gordon.
An accomplished golfer who played on the varsity team at the University of Kentucky, John-Gordon said he's heard from many of those people in the week since his father's death.
He said that a standing room only crowd is expected for his dad's memorial service, scheduled for next Saturday at 2 p.m. at the Stewartsville Baptist Church in Laurinburg.
'Very proud'
"It's a shame it took this happening to learn just how influential my father was in the lives of other people," said John-Gordon, 26, who lives in Charlotte. Beckett also has a daughter, Emily, who lives in Asheville.
"The response we've gotten since the crash has meant the world to me," he said. "It's made me very proud."
John-Gordon said he talked to his father the night before he died. He was at Bank of America Stadium at the time of the call, watching the Carolina Panthers-Washington Redskins game.
"He sounded so happy," the younger Beckett said. "Bonneville was a special place to him and he was doing what he loved to do. The one thing he did say, though, is that the course wasn't in as good a shape as it usually is. I have to believe that had something to do with his crash."
Creel, the race director, said that all cars must pass a 50-point safety inspection - conducted by two inspectors - before being allowed to compete.
Ironically, Beckett had spent more than a month prior to Bonneville Speedweek working to repair his car from a mishap that occurred at the most recent meet in Maxton.
On that occasion, his parachute failed to open at the end of a run, forcing him to turn off the course and into the nearby woods in an attempt to stop.
According to John-Gordon, it was the only incident he can remember his father being involved in as a land speed racer.
"Those are things that happen," Turk said.
"It's not something you think about or talk about. This is a pretty brutal thing, but John knew the risk. He knew what he was doing. It was just his time."
Staff writer Brett Friedlander can be reached at friedlanderb@fayettevillenc.com or 486-3513.
