FEELING LIKE A ROOKIE AGAIN, CAPPS QUICKEST ON DAY ONE AT GATORNATS

Written by Larry Crum, photo by Roger Richards    Sat, 2021-03-13 14:55

 

Ron Capps is one of the living legends of the sport of drag racing.

The 2016 Funny Car world champion has 66 wins on his resume. He has more than 760 round wins and more than 560 total races under his belt.

On Friday, however, the veteran of more than 25 years felt more like a rookie than the fearless competitor many have come to know him as. Why? Because Capps was nothing more than a new cog in a well-oiled machine on a team that wasn’t his until this year.

Entering the 2021 NHRA season, Capps inherited the crew chief, team and much of the parts and pieces of former Don Schumacher Racing teammate Jack Beckman. He was also without longtime decision-maker Rahn Tobler who retired at the beginning of the year, replaced with veteran tuners John Medlen and Dean “Guido” Antonelli.

So how did Capps react to a new team, new car and, well, new everything?

He rocketed straight to the top in the NAPA Auto Parts Dodge Charger SRT Funny Car with a chart-topping 3.895-second pass at 329.02 mph at the AMALIE Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals at Gainesville Raceway.

“Starting the year off there are a lot of unique things. For me, it is a brand new team, brand new car, so many different things for me I feel like a rookie trying to get used to this car,” Capps said. “This is Jack’s team. I actually called Jack this morning driving in. I didn’t expect him to pick up, but he picked up. I knew he would be working, so I asked him why he picked up. He said, ‘the phone rang and it said Ron Capps. Of course I am going to pick it up.’ We had a great talk. It is a bummer he is not out here, we all love Jack Beckman, but it just worked out this way.”

Alexis DeJoria qualified second on Friday in the first of three qualifying sessions with a 3.914 at 324.28 mph. Tim Wilkerson was third with a 3.917 at 326.32 mph, while J.R. Todd (3.955) and Cruz Pedregon (3.971) rounded out the top five.

16-time Funny Car champion John Force, in his first on-track action in more than a year, was 13th on the charts after clicking it off early during his first run.

Capps was excited, but not surprised, by his very quick pass Friday in Florida as the team had a strong showing in testing one week earlier in West Palm Beach, Florida.

“You hope for a result like this, but you certainly don’t expect it because that would be foolish and arrogant. But I certainly knew we had the capabilities,” Capps said. “We made like five runs from 3.89 to 3.94 in testing and ran two 3.89s. I joked with the team, ‘let's dial in the bracket at 3.88 and go run it.’ We almost did just that.”

While on paper Capps’ team is almost entirely new, Capps still has plenty of familiarity with his new play-callers. In addition to being around the crew as neighbors in the pit area for much of the past few years, Capps has a strong bond with some of the closest members of his new team.

“It is still sad that I don’t have Tobler around, but he was the first text I got congratulating me on the run. Still, I have such a long friendship with Guido going back to when we worked with Force,” Capps said. “It is pretty cool to have him point at me and tell me to have fun before a run. I really feel like I should be here.”

After such an odd 2020 brought about by the pandemic, now carried over to 2021 with a unique season opener at Gainesville instead of the traditional start in Pomona, California, Capps said that this year is all about taking baby steps as anything can happen.

He was, however, reflective of starting the year at one of the traditional majors on the NHRA schedule and a place that holds a special place in his storied history in the sport.

“Every year since ‘95 when I came here in Top Fuel as a rookie, I would drive on Waldo and see the campers for miles. I remember in those days I couldn’t believe there were so many people. And again, this morning, it made the hair on my neck stand up. I just love our fans to death,” Capps said. “There was nothing cooler than coming in here this morning and seeing a couple Force banners and then seeing a Ron Capps NAPA banner in the campground. It makes me feel like a kid.

“It is almost like it is natural. We should be starting here because we know we are going to end at Pomona. But this year is going to be unique. Starting here and not Pomona. 70 years of NHRA. And then we have such a big number come up like that. I think this year is going to throw some really cool, unique things at us as the universe starts to get things right again.”

 

 
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