Ron Capps knows better than to boast. Spouting off will get you into trouble faster than red light.

“It’s weird how Sundays go when you’re a nitro driver,” Capps said. “It’s a roller coaster ride and to have a hunch that you’re going to win is way too cocky and for a nitro driver to say he is better than someone in the class … you think it … but you never say it aloud out here. When someone says that, you think, ‘That’s the stupidest thing you could say.”

Capps entered the final round with tons more experience that his opponent Ashley Force Hood and considerably less than her fourteen-time world champion dad John Force.

He’s seen first-hand how she’s developed into a driver, a proverbial force to be reckoned with … no pun intended. Ron Capps knows better than to boast. Spouting off will get you into trouble faster than red light.

“It’s weird how Sundays go when you’re a nitro driver,” Capps said. “It’s a roller coaster ride and to have a hunch that you’re going to win is way too cocky and for a nitro driver to say he is better than someone in the class … you think it … but you never say it aloud out here. When someone says that, you think, ‘That’s the stupidest thing you could say.”

Capps entered the final round with tons more experience that his opponent Ashley Force Hood and considerably less than her fourteen-time world champion dad John Force.

He’s seen first-hand how she’s developed into a driver, a proverbial force to be reckoned with … no pun intended.

That’s why he got more fired up to race her in the finals than her dad in the second round.

He was still careful of his words, even though he’s largely had the car to beat this season.

“I told my crew in the staging lanes that we were going to make a lot of fans upset if we beat her,” Capps admitted. “My daughter loves her … so I guess I upset her too.”

In beating Mrs. Force Hood, Capps scored his 29th career victory in 59 career final rounds. The Topeka triumph represented his fourth of the season in five final round appearances.

Beyond getting the best of Ashley in the final round was the incessant desire to put his “life coach/crew chief” Ed McCulloch in the position to make personal history as one-half of the first father/son tuning tandem to win titles at the same event.

McCulloch, once a storied nitro racer of three decades, won the Topeka Top Fuel title in 1992.

The two took their final round with Force Hood seriously … so serious that they had brainstormed her to run a 4.23 or 4.24 in the final round and then prepared their combination to beat that run.

Capps ran a 4.265, 286.07 as Force Hood slowed to a 4.495, 238.26.

“I knew I had to do my job on the starting line and I kept looking out of the side of my eye as we went down the track and I kept figuring she was going to come by me at any moment,” Capps said. “The win light came on and I wasn’t quite sure who had won.”

In the end, Capps was proud of his storied crew chief and the performance he turned in despite the adverse conditions he faced.

“Ed McCulloch fought the conditions all weekend long,” Capps said. “We dropped cylinders and we got put in the lane which was considered not as good as the left lane. We won two rounds in that right lane.”

That turnaround of a lane with obvious issues is something that Capps believes deserves mention.

“I gotta tell you about the staff here at Heartland Park, the Safety Safari and the NHRA,” Capps said. “It was a one groove track on Friday and Saturday. When the track temperature is 125 and you have a two lane drag strip with both lanes winning is a phenomenal job.”

Capps believes the key to his success in 2009 can be largely attributed to confidence. Because McCulloch has made changes to the way the car reacts at the hit of the throttle has enabled him to come to the line time and time again with the assurance his has a car capable of winning every time. McCulloch, Capps adds, has his driver’s focus primarily on the task at hand.

There’s not talking championships, nor are they counting points.

“(McCulloch) told me, he’s not worried about the Countdown, or the next event in Chicago, he’s concentrating on the next round,” Capps said. “That [thought process] has helped me tremendously as a driver.”

When asked if he had a gut feeling about the final round, Capps was quick with his reply.

“I had a gut feeling alright,” Capps said. “I had a feeling in my gut that I was going to throw up.”

Capps knew he had to do well for his team, and importantly for McCulloch, to put him in a position to become the first father/son crew chief tandem to win a professional category at the same national event.

Then again, there was his pesky NAPA Auto Parts teammate Michael Waltrip ready to give him grief.

“He was going to call me to tell me that I had gotten beat by a girl again,” Capps said. “He does that every time I lose to Ashley.”

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