Ron Capps knows the thrill of victory and agony of defeat. Last season was one unlike he's experienced in his storied career.

Ron lost the title by a mere two points to teammate Jack Beckman, after leading the chase for much of the season.

This was the fourth time the fan-favorite and social media icon had come up short. This time, Ron believes, the reality of the shortcoming was compounded more than ever.

John Force was walking through the pits, wearing his firesuit and drinking a cup of coffee -- which seemed weird enough to daughter Courtney Force, for she was sweltering in the blessed February warmth.

She told him he needed to hustle to the Auto Club Raceway at Pomona starting line to watch her sister Brittany make another Top Fuel qualifying pass. Immediately he went into battle mode, dropped his coffee cup to the ground, and took off running toward the track.

Top Fuel's Tony Schumacher shaved five-thousandths of a second Saturday from his already best-in-class elapsed time at the O'Reilly Auto Parts Winternationals.

His 3.753-second pass on the Auto Club Raceway at Pomona's 1,000-foot course in the U.S. Army Dragster made him the  No. 1 qualifier -- quickest in the quickest field in Top Fuel history.

Rather than bask in the honor of stretching his record 72nd time to lead the class into Sunday eliminations, Schumacher minimized it by saying, "It means I have to run the quickest 16th qualifier."

Jack Beckman is notorious for taking a long time to talk about a short pass.
 
But after taking over the Funny Car class' provisional No. 1 qualifying position Friday at the NHRA's O'Reilly Winternationals with a 4.045-second run, he tried to be a little more concise.