No one can ever doubt the passion and excitement Ron Capps has for NHRA drag racing.

The veteran nitro Funny Car was plenty excited Sunday at the SpringNationals at Royal Purple Raceway in Houston.

Capps, who drives the Don Schumacher Racing NAPA Auto Parts Dodge Charger, beat his teammate Jack Beckman in the finals at Royal Purple Raceway.
Capps clocked a 4.244-second time at 258.32 mph to defeat Beckman, who slowed to a 4.480-second at 205.16 mph.

“It has been a long weekend, and these are the races that I’ve talked about in the past where you feel like you really earned it,” Capps said. “The conditions that you have to drive in, you have to tune in, everybody has to be on their best. The track, I have to tell you Seth Angel (Executive Vice President & General Manager at Royal Purple Raceway), I want to kiss that guy. (For) several years, we gave him a lot of grief because we needed two lanes and there was a pretty good bump in one lane, and considering the rain that came and the sun afterwards, most tracks would have had water swelling up through them, and they did a heck of a job. We won two, including the final, without lane choice in the right hand lane. Everybody did such a great job to get our sport on live TV. I already received text messages from all the NASCAR guys who just hopped out of their cars in Richmond (Va.) and they were texting that were watching drag racing, and that’s going to grow our sport.”

This was Capps’ 45th of his career – he had one Top Fuel win in 1995 in Seattle and he now has 44 in Funny Car. Those 44 wins move him into second place on the all-time career list.

Capps now has three Houston wins, 2006-2007 and 2015, and he also moved into first place in the points from fifth where he began the weekend. This is the first time Capps was atop the points since the fifth event of the 2013 season. Capps has yet to win an NHRA nitro Funny Car world title, finishing second in 1998, 2000, 2005 and 2012.

“Somebody told me down there (after his win over Beckman) that we had the points lead and I just didn’t think about it all day,” Capps said. “Being No. 2 all time (in career nitro Funny Car wins) is crazy. From the time I drove Don Prudhomme’s Funny Car and a lot of those crew guys are with us with DSR now and since I started in 2005 in the Brute car, the amount of wins with Ed McCulloch, Tim Richards, John Medlen and Rahn Tobler,they have all given me a lot of wins. It’s just a tribute to all those guys (because) I’m not that good. To make me second-place all time, it tells you how good of people we have around us, but more than anything NAPA Auto Parts. We are going on eight years, I’m starting to feel like Kenny Bernstein. It is hard to keep a sponsor and take them that far and hold on to them. I just feel like I wake up in the morning and all I want to think about is how to make our sport better and make sponsors happier and prouder and Don Schumacher more and more proud of me. If we keep doing that, we will be OK.”

Capps best win of the day came when he beat Robert Hight on a holeshot. Both drivers had identical 4.084-second times. The difference was Capps .076 reaction time compared to Hight’s .077 reaction time.

“Robert Hight sent me a text after we had that close race and I just fired back to him that ‘Dude you bring out the best in me.’ He said ‘good job go get them.’ To get a message like that from another driver after beating them in that close of a race and that good of a driver and that competitive of a driver was cool.”

Capps, who qualified No. 3, had wins over John Hale, Matt Hagan, Hight and Beckman.

“You can’t go up there light-footed anymore, what a day,” Capps said. “Live TV, the whole thing was just awesome.”

Capps also acknowledged how much he enjoys driving his Funny Car which is equipped with the new Dodge Charger body.

“That new car is so nice to drive, but I said in Gainesville (when he won), the only bad thing is now I can see out the side windows and it is not a good thing when I’m going 320 mph and I see out my window,” Capps said. “It’s exciting. I was like a little kid starting over as a rookie when they brought that (new Dodge Charger body) in. I thought this was the greatest thing ever and how good it was to drive a car like that.”

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