This was a wild ride Ron Capps wasn’t expecting Saturday.

The veteran driver of the NAPA Dodge for Don Schumacher Racing walked away from a fiery engine explosion during the third round of qualifying at the Lucas Oil Nationals at Brainerd (Minn.) International Raceway.

“Everything worked perfect,” Capps said about the safety devices on his car. “All this means a lot more now after going through what we did with Johnny’s (Gray’s) car. On our particular bodies, the way they are designed it is good that the tethers were not on. Everybody agreed after Johnny’s explosion that the body needs to be securely latched in the front. It was as big of a bomb or explosion as my Dallas explosion except the body went away, which was perfect. That Dallas explosion for me was horrific because the body pinned me in there. The pieces came back and I couldn’t move.”

This was a wild ride Ron Capps wasn’t expecting Saturday.

The veteran driver of the NAPA Dodge for Don Schumacher Racing walked away from a fiery engine explosion during the third round of qualifying at the Lucas Oil Nationals at Brainerd (Minn.) International Raceway.

“Everything worked perfect,” Capps said about the safety devices on his car. “All this means a lot more now after going through what we did with Johnny’s (Gray’s) car. On our particular bodies, the way they are designed it is good that the tethers were not on. Everybody agreed after Johnny’s explosion that the body needs to be securely latched in the front. It was as big of a bomb or explosion as my Dallas explosion except the body went away, which was perfect. That Dallas explosion for me was horrific because the body pinned me in there. The pieces came back and I couldn’t move.”

Back in 2002, Capps was racing his nitro Funny Car against his Skoal Racing teammate, Tommy Johnson Jr., in the first round of the O'Reilly Fall Nationals in Dallas when an intake valve retainer broke, triggering the blast. Capps walked away with a headache and sore knees from the explosion.

“It burned the front of my visor pretty good and my ears are ringing, but I don’t have a headache or anything,” Capps said following his most recent crash. “Everything worked perfect I will be honest with you. I really wasn’t scared. I have gone in Turn 3 at Eldora (Speedway in Ohio) with Tony Stewart, Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch all around me wide open in a dirt Late Model not letting up. If that doesn’t scare you I don’t know what will. I have been through this enough times. It just looked worse. It really wasn’t that bad. The concussion is what gets you.”

Shortly after Capps’ explosion, Don Schumacher spoke with Competition Plus.

“I don’t know what caused it,” Schumacher said. “It was something in the valve train. The top part of the motor, the short block is fine. We could probably even run it again, but we are not going to so we are changing out the short block. It was something on the top of the motor. That’s all we can identify at this point. We have no idea why or when or what may have broken to cause it to take the top of the motor off.”

The engine in Johnny Gray’s DSR nitro Funny Car exploded during the second round of NHRA’s Sonoma (Calif.) Nationals on July 28.

Gray was the first driver to experience a major engine failure since the NHRA mandated the use of Funny Car body tethers at the Mile-High Nationals July 19. The tethers are designed to keep bodies from leaving the chassis in case of engine explosions. This new safety implementation was inspired when driver Robert Hight launched a carbon fiber body into the grandstands at zMax Dragway (Concord, N.C.) during the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals last April 20. The dual front latching on the nitro Funny Cars has remained mandatory since the Mile-High Nationals.

“On our particular body I was glad tethers weren’t on there,” Capps said. “The Toyota is made differently and the Ford body is made differently and under the same concussion if you put them side-by-side-by-side, they would all come apart in different ways. Just because ours doesn’t need it (tethers) doesn’t mean the Toyota does or doesn’t or the Ford. Just the way ours are designed it is just a different style body and in our particular case, to be honest, I was worried when I was slowing down I didn’t want to hurt John (Force), but I was worried where the back half of the body went and they told me it flipped right on the track and didn’t go anywhere and that’s exactly what we want to happen. It split it at the a-pillar and it kept the front on it and took the rear off. It worked exactly like it should have. You can’t believe how happy I am about the way it came off.”  

Capps, who was in the right lane, was headed straight down the track and at about the 900-foot mark his engine exploded and disintegrated the back half of the body and sent pieces flying up in the air behind the car. Capps clocked a 4.128-second elapsed time at 269.03 mph. John Force was in the left lane against Capps. Capps came back for the fourth qualifying session but his Dodge smoked the tires early and slowed to a 6.877 seconds.

“When it happened it took me a minute to kind of figure out what happened, where I was,” Capps said. “At that point, the fire was all around my head. I was worried I just got a new Impact helmet and I was worried about the visor flipping up like people have had an issue with and it stayed sealed. I was just looking at fire. It was all around my visor and I thought this is perfect - it is working. Gary Beck had taught me when I was rookie in Top Fuel (in 1995) the first thing you do is reach wherever the fuel shutoff is if you are upside down on fire or whatever. I reached down and it was already off. I praise Dave Leahy (the president of Electrimotion) and NHRA for that auto shut-off. I don’t care how other drivers feel about it. I knew the chutes were out and the fuel was already off and I was slowing down. I am a perfect example of what all the fuss has been about for two months. Besides thanking Leahy and NHRA I have to thank Johnny Gray for stepping up and being vocal about the tethers and the safety. I w
as safer in that whole thing than I am getting out here on highway 371 in my rental car, in spite of how bad it might have looked.”

After the initial craziness of Capps’ explosion, he was thankful for how his Funny Car body reacted in the explosion.

“The best part was when the fire went away and I looked around the back part of the body was gone, but I had the front on and I could steer with the down force with the front piece being on,” Capps said.  “It was perfect. It was like being in a dirt car at Eldora. I had control of the front end where I wanted to drive and I didn’t want to hurt (John) Force. When the fire went away and I saw where he was. I started to veer off. I knew the trucks couldn’t pull out and I could see them down there on his side, but he wasn’t slowing down for them to pull out and come to me. I just let go of the brake and I stuck my arm out like a blinker just telling him to kind of slow down so I could get over and I eased my way over and I drove right up in front of the trucks right where the fire extinguisher was so they didn’t have to move.”

The act of cutting and pasting articles from this publication to a message board is a clear copyright violation as is pulling photos to post on social media sites. All articles and photography published in CompetitionPlus.com are protected by United States of America and International copyright laws unless mentioned otherwise. The content on this website is intended for the private use of the reader and may not be published or reposted in any form without the prior written consent of CompetitionPlus.com.