Runner-Up Finish for Capps at NHRA Gatornationals Gives Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car Second Final Round Appearance of the Season
· Defending title winner Ron Capps drives his DSR Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car to a runner-up finish at 47th annual NHRA Gatornationals
· Two final round appearances in three events this season for Capps has the DSR driver just one point from the top spot in the Funny Car standings
· Allen Johnson takes Dodge Dart GT to Pro Stock semifinals at Gainesville Raceway
Gainesville, Florida (March 20, 2016) – For a second year in a row, Ron Capps fought his way to a final round appearance at Gainesville Raceway, but while the defending winner didn’t come away with his fourth coveted Wally from the 47th annual National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Gatornationals as he had hoped, his two final round appearances so far this season aboard his Don Schumacher Racing Dodge Charger R/T have him just one point out of the Funny Car points lead.
Capps arrived at the traditional East Coast opener for the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series atop the standings on the merit of his title win at the season opening Winternationals at Pomona, then qualified his HEMI®-powered flopper fifth for eliminations. From that position he got past John Hale, Cruz Pedregon, as well as DSR teammate and No. 1 qualifier Jack Beckman to advance to a final showdown against Robert Hight.
Capps found himself on the losing end of a traction battle against the John Force Racing driver, also ceding the points lead to Hight, which he had been in since the start of the 2016 season.
“I was confident that we were going to go up there against Hight and run in the (3.90-second range) and if they beat us they beat us,” Capps said. “But we went out and pulled the tires loose pretty violently. I was trying to catch it and then Robert smoked his but was able to catch it quicker. All in all we ended up qualifying good again and made it to our second final round this year. It hurts now but in a couple of days it will feel better because we got to the final round again. But when you get to the final you expect to win it.”
After topping qualifying with the NHRA Funny Car national record by posting a 3.879-second pass at 329.26 mph, Beckman earned his 300th round win in the first match up of the day against John Diehl. Then, for a third consecutive event, Beckman saw John Force in the adjacent lane for the second round of eliminations and caught a bit of a break when his opponent had a rare starting line foul.
In a semifinal dual against his DSR teammate Capps, the Infinite Hero Dodge Charger R/T driver realized just prior to the lighting of the Christmas tree that he would be at a disadvantage as smoke escaped his vehicle and indicated a problem. To compensate, Beckman staged quickly, “double-bulbing” his teammate to try to force an error, but didn’t make it very far before losing forward momentum and watched helplessly as Capps peddled his own ride to the finish.
“It happened to me once before,” said Beckman of his starting line issues. “It seized the bearing for the blower drive and when that happens it gets so hot it boils the seal and all the fluid in the front of the supercharger shoots out the front. The thing was, for whatever the reason, we got multiple issues out of the way on that one run. Our car didn’t want to back up after the burnout and it was barely moving.
“At that point you pretty much know the only chance you have is to make the other car redlight so I changed my entire starting line routine. Ron’s experienced and he didn’t fall for it. To rub salt into our wound we then saw he had trouble, but that’s the nature of drag racing.”
After qualifying sixth, Mopar Express Lane Dodge Charger R/T driver Matt Hagan got a monkey off his back by running a stout 3.966-second pass at 316.82 mph to beat Alexis DeJoria’s 3.992-second /312.28 mph effort to advance past the first round for the first time this season. A second round showdown against eventual winner Hight didn’t go as the Mopar driver had hoped when his racecar moved out of the racing line and slowed to end his challenge for the national title.
“That first round win really got us thinking that things are starting to turn our way and maybe we got rid of some of our bad luck,” Hagan said. “I got it out of the groove and it’s just one of those deals where the car doesn’t like to run down the track if it’s not in the groove. It just got to the left and I couldn’t get it back over. I should’ve started making corrections earlier. There’s no excuse. You’re paid to be a driver and be on top of it and that’s what you’ve got to do.”
“I feel like we are making headway,” said Hagan who was encouraged with the progress his team has made despite a rough start. “We got out of first round and we’re taking baby steps. The guys did a great job servicing between rounds and really all weekend. We just need a little here and there and we’ll be turning on consecutive win lights.”
After qualifying tenth, the DSR Make-A-Wish Dodge Charger R/T of Tommy Johnson Jr. ran a 4.020/313.73 and was first off the start but that wasn’t quite enough to defeat Chad Head’s 3.991/318.92 pass.
In Pro Stock competition, back-to-back Gatornationals title winner (2012-2013) Allen Johnson drove the new fuel injected J&J Racing Marathon Petroleum Dodge Dart GT to its first semifinal appearance by edging the Elite Motorsports Mopar Performance Dodge Dart of Erica Enders by just .01-seconds at the finish line, then using a .035-second reaction time to propel him to a holeshot win with a 6.675/208.04 pass over Bo Butner’s 6.637/209.26. The 2012 NHRA Pro Stock champ’s next opponent was four-time champion Greg Anderson, and despite a starting line advantage, Johnson’s 6.646/208.59 wasn’t enough to overcome this year’s eventual Gatornationals title winner’s 6.596/209.98.
Having seen the winner’s circle at the Gatornationals on two occasions, Jeg Coughlin Jr. was hoping that after qualifying sixth and taking the “Magneti Marelli Offered by Mopar”/ Jegs.com Dodge Dart GT to a first round win over Chris McGaha, that the stage was set for a good long day. His next round, however, didn’t go as planned even with a starting line advantage over Anderson as Coughlin shook the tires as soon as he let the clutch out.
“I know we’re heading in the right direction,” Coughlin said. “We’ve said by the first three to five races, we need to get our act together and get some consistency. We felt like we had a little bit better racecar here, and we did. We qualified in the top half with our best effort at No. 6, showing that we’re making strides.
“We had a sizable lead off the starting line (against Anderson), and it would’ve been nice to run it down through there. We probably would’ve turned the win light on, but coulda, shoulda, woulda, I know.”
Elite Motorsports teammate Enders can sympathize after losing to the fellow Mopar driver Johnson by a hundredth of a second to endure her third first-round loss this year. Enders posted a 0.035-second reaction time and 6.639/208.65 run to Johnson’s 0.029-reaction time and 6.634/208.97 winning pass.
“We’re getting so close to where we want to be, and we knew making the switch to Mopar would take some adjustments, but it’s still frustrating when you lose a drag race,” Enders said, “especially when you consider all of the success we’ve had the last two seasons. I know we’ll be alright and the guys are upbeat and telling me not to get down, but I suppose I’ve gotten a little spoiled. At the same time, I know we have the best team, the best crew guys, the best tuners, the best engine builders in the world under this awning, so there’s no doubt we’ll be back to our winning ways very soon. We just have to be patient.”
“I keep saying it but we’ve only had these HEMI motors for a month, so it’s new to all of us, but when Jake Hairston and Nick Ferri tell me there are big things to come, I believe them. The more and more runs we make and the more dyno time those two have, the better it will be. Like I said, we have to be patient.”
No.14 qualifier, V. Gaines took the his HEMI-powered Dodge Dart for its best lap of the weekend with a 6.656 second/ 208.78 mph but it wasn’t quite enough to challenge the No. 2 qualifier and eventual title winner Anderson’s 6.581/210.28.