Championship Drag Racing

O'Reilly Fall Nationals
Dallas
(Oct. 9-12)

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Ron Capps Skoal Racing Funny Car

Reports: Sunday Pre-race

Dallas, Sunday: Ron Capps and Tommy Johnson Jr., teammates on Don Prudhomme's Skoal Racing team, were given an opportunity to knock off the two drivers fighting for the NHRA POWERade Series Funny Car championship in the first round of Sunday's O'Reilly Fall Nationals at the Texas Motorplex.

And they put up a good fight, but point leader Tony Pedregon beat Capps and Whit Bazemore, Pedregon's only challenger, edged Johnson.

Capps and Johnson Jr. qualified with identical 4.947-second runs on their last attempts Saturday afternoon, with Capps starting one position in front of Johnson (11th and 12th) by running fastest on that attempt, 314.02 mph to 307.16. Bazemore was fifth and Pedregon sixth.

Johnson left the starting line first -- .047 to .058 - and said he didn't see Bazemore's car at any time, "But I have my helmet taped so I don't see too well peripherally," Johnson added. "And I didn't see the win light come on either. Then I thought, 'Did he win? Are you kidding me?'"

Bazemore crossed first at 4.850, 320.28 mph to Johnson's 4.863 at 314.57 mph, his quickest and fastest run of the weekend. The difference was 22-thousandths of a second.

"It was a frustrating weekend and I'm glad our streak of seven races in seven weeks is over," Johnson said.

Capps' effort began with a brilliant .010 reaction time but the run was short-circuited by severe tire shake early on and he coasted through in 9.053 seconds at 92.44 mph to Pedregon's 4.873 at 315.78.

"The engine made more horsepower on the run and the result was it pulled the tires loose and the tires shook real hard," he said.

Capps remained sixth in points with 1062 points. Johnson is 10th at 986.

Dallas, pre-race: Ask Ron Capps about memorable moments at the Texas Motorplex and he doesn't have to think back too far.

"We made headlines there last year with the explosion, but we definitely don't want to repeat that this year," said Capps, driver of Don Prudhomme's Skoal Racing Green Camaro Funny Car. "We did have better times there. We won in May 1998 and qualified No. 1 in 1997."

Tommy Johnson Jr., Capps' Skoal Racing teammate and driver of the Blue Camaro, also picks last year's event as a memorable one, along with his runner-up finish in 1999.

Johnson was in the opposite lane when something broke in Capps' engine and it expired with a huge bang that destroyed the car's carbon fiber body, sending pieces flying. The chassis banged the guard wall, leaving Capps a bit dazed and with sore knees, but otherwise unhurt.

Capps and Johnson will be searching for round wins and, perhaps, their first final-round match when they return to the Motorplex for this weekend's O'Reilly Fall Nationals. They also will be driving safer racecars as the result of Capps' untoward incident.

Prudhomme and car builder Murf McKinney installed more protection around the driver's legs and feet in the 2003 Camaros.

"We made headlines with that explosion," Capps said, "and we added more safety features for our Skoal racecars for Tommy and me. That was the worst explosion I've had since I began driving Funny Cars in 1997.

"We are excited to go to the Motorplex this year. Our new crew chief, Todd Okuhara, is doing a great job getting our car to run. One of our problems has been lack of track time. We've run into a lot of rain at our races lately and have lost qualifying runs. We needed those runs to help Todd, who made big changes in the combination. Hopefully we'll get all four runs in and be ready to race Sunday."

Both Prudhomme cars have experienced traction trouble and neither crew has been able to consistently cure it.

Tire shake slowed Capps in Sunday's first-round pairing against Dean Skuza at Reading, Pa., and precipitated a loss, 4.888 seconds to 4.898 seconds.

Johnson's shake caused him to pedal the throttle a couple of times in an attempt to regain traction in his first-round race against Del Worsham. The car did take off after Worsham but ran out of track as Worsham crossed first, 5.172 seconds to 5.195.

"The tires still want to shake 1.2 seconds into the run," Johnson said. "The potential to run good is there, we just need to get consistency without the shake.

"I know what I want when we get to the Motorplex – four qualifying runs. Nothing has been in our favor lately because we haven't been able to figure things out because we keep losing runs to the rain. It's a great track and maybe with a little luck we can get our program back on track."

Johnson finished second at the Motorplex in 1999 and was a semifinalist last year.

Capps remained sixth in NHRA POWERade Series standings with 1,030 points while Johnson slipped to ninth (954) in what has suddenly become a congested bottom half of the top 10.

Tim Wilkerson's win over Cruz Pedregon in Sunday's finale at Reading scrambled the field. Only three points separate Johnson from Wilkerson, who is now seventh. Gary Scelzi is eighth at 956 and Pedregon is 10th at 944.