Crew chief Ed McCulloch, left, and Ron Capps already have won four times this season in NHRA Funny Car competition with their NAPA Auto Parts Dodge.

Many words are used by NHRA drivers and crew chiefs to describe NHRA’s Western Swing, the trio of midsummer races that stretches from Denver to Seattle to Sonoma in a span of three weeks.

Grueling. Critical. Demanding.

The one word you won’t hear race team members use about the Western Swing? Easy.

Teams will travel approximately 2,115 miles during the 21-day mini-marathon so that their race cars can – if all goes according to plan – log a maximum of 6 miles (4.5 for Top Fuel and Funny Car) combined on all three racetracks. Between those 1,000-foot or quarter-mile runs, the teams will be pushed to the limit to service those vehicles in 75 minutes or less. Each race will present its own set of unique circumstances, whether it be extreme altitude, unpredictable weather conditions, or sheer physical exhaustion from the task at hand.

The Western Swing kicks off with the Mopar Mile-High NHRA Nationals, July 10-12, at scenic Bandimere Speedway, just west of Denver. Tony Schumacher (Top Fuel), Tim Wilkerson (Funny Car), Greg Anderson (Pro Stock), and Matt Smith (Pro Stock Motorcycle) are the defending winners of the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series event, which will be televised by ESPN2 and ESPN2HD.

For Ron Capps, driver of the NAPA Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car, the Western Swing is a cool part of NHRA history and a key stretch of each season that usually offers a sneak preview of the teams that will likely be there at the end, battling for the Full Throttle Series world-championship crowns.

“It’s pretty historic when you look back at who has done well in the Western Swing in the past,” said Capps, a four-time winner this season. “You see a lot of drivers who have done well on the Western Swing in every category of NHRA racing go on to be the champions at the end of the year.

“When you stand back and look at it from a racer’s view, getting into the Countdown [to the Championship, NHRA playoffs] is as difficult as it gets at this stage because you start off with a race in Denver, where it’s a mile high, there’s hardly any oxygen, and it’s warm. It’s very tough for a crew chief to make a car run there, and physically, for a driver, it’s one of the most demanding tracks we go to.”

Once teams master the unique challenges that Bandimere presents, they are off to two races closer to sea level: the NHRA Northwest Nationals at Pacific Raceways in Seattle and the Fram Autolite NHRA Nationals at Infineon Raceway in California’s San Francisco Bay Area.

Capps, who has won races at two of the three stops on the Western Swing, says even though the altitude is left behind, it doesn’t get any easier.

“And the very following weekend, we go to Seattle, where you go from one mile up to below sea level with lots of trees around and oxygen for the engine,” Capps explained. “The conditions in Seattle are wonderful for the engine, and you really have to be on your game because the track can be very fast , where you’re used to being up in Denver where the times are two- or three-tenths slower than what they would be at sea level.

“Then, from there, we go to hot and dry conditions in Sonoma, where again it’s close to sea level but always very hot. It’s a grueling three weeks because Denver separates the great crew chiefs from the OK crew chiefs. If you don’t have your act together as a crew chief in Denver, you’re going to hurt parts because it’s very hard on parts in the first place.”

The Western Swing has been a part of the NHRA circuit since 1989. Since that time, only six Pro drivers have swept the trio of races. Top Fuel legend Joe Amato did it in 1991 and was followed by Funny Car kingpin John Force in 1994. Top Fuel’s Cory McClenathan did it in 1997, and Larry Dixon accomplished the feat in 2003. Anderson became the first Pro Stock driver to do it, in 2004, and last year, Schumacher's record-breaking season included holding a broom in the winner’s circle at Infineon Raceway.

“Basically, it’s as grueling a three-in-a-row stint as we’re going to get on the NHRA Full Throttle circuit,” Capps said. “This is when you start thinking a little bit ahead about where you want to be when the Countdown begins. We want to be the points leader. And right now, there are some teams back there in sixth, seventh, eighth, all the way to 10th place and even 12th that are battling. And I was in that position last year. We were struggling a little bit. It’s going to be great for the fans to watch those teams fight it out because there are going to be several very good championship-caliber teams that are not going to make the Countdown.

“This is the point of the season where you need momentum. If you have a bad three races now, it could very well knock you out of the Countdown. We’re at the front of the pack, and we’re expected to leave Sonoma with the Full Throttle points lead.”