Ron Capps Races Dodge//SRT Mopar Funny Car to
NHRA Southern Nationals Victory
· Ron Capps scores first NHRA Funny Car win of 2019 by racing Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Funny Car to victory in the NHRA Southern Nationals at Atlanta Dragway
· Tommy Johnson, Jr. reaches semifinal aboard Make-A-Wish Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Funny Car for the second time in 2019
· Defending Southern Nationals winner Leah Pritchett quali
fied fourth, advanced to second round behind wheel of the HEMI-powered DSR Top Fuel dragster
· Jerry Hatch, Jack Zimmerman earn Dodge Top Finisher Awards at Atlanta
· More info on Mopar in NHRA available at http://blog.mopar.com
· Dodge Garage, a digital content hub for muscle car and race enthusiasts, features highlights from NHRA season
May 5, 2019, Commerce, Georgia – Ron Capps became the second driver to put a Mopar-powered Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Funny Car in the winner’s circle by racing the Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) machine to victory in the 39th annual Arby’s NHRA Southern Nationals at Atlanta Dragway in Commerce, Georgia, on Sunday, May 5.
Capps, one of six Mopar-powered Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Funny Car drivers in Sunday’s field, earned his 62nd career win, first of 2019 and third career triumph at the track. Tommy Johnson, Jr. reached the semifinal while Jack Beckman, Matt Hagan, Cruz Pedregon, and Jim Campbell were unable to advance past round one. Leah Pritchett raced her HEMI-powered DSR Top Fuel dragster into the second round.
The victory for Capps was well earned for the 2016 Funny Car world champion. He started the day from the No. 11 position and opened eliminations by taking down last weekend’s Charlotte winner, Shawn Langdon, in the first round with a run of 4.076 seconds. Next in his path was 16-time champion John Force and their 101st career match-up. For the fourth straight year, Capps defeated Force in the Southern Nationals by making his best run of the day at 4.022 to Force’s pass of 4.312. In the semifinals, it was an all Mopar/DSR match-up with Capps out-dueling Johnson, Jr. with a run of 4.071 to reach his seventh career final at the facility.
The final pitted Capps versus Tim Wilkerson and it marked the third time in the past five years the duo would race for the Atlanta victory. Wilkerson won in 2015 and Capps was victorious in 2017. On Sunday, Capps was quicker off the starting line and he earned the holeshot victory with his run of 4.068 seconds compared to Wilkerson’s pass 4.052. The margin of victory was 0.0102 seconds (approximately 5 feet).
Despite coming up short in his semifinal matchup with Capps, Johnson, Jr. was extremely happy with the performance of the DSR Make-A-Wish Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Funny Car. In the first round, he avenged his first-round loss in Houston to DSR teammate Matt Hagan with a run of 4.037 seconds and in round two, he defeated reigning Funny Car champion J.R. Todd with a smooth pass of 4.334 to win over Todd’s tire-smoking run of 10.638. By reaching the semifinal, Johnson jumped back up into the top-five in the championship standings heading to Richmond.
After finishing runner-up in Atlanta last May, Matt Hagan was looking to capture his second career victory at the track and score his second win of 2019. Qualifying proved to be difficult for everyone in the class Friday and Saturday with the changing weather conditions and the result was Hagan qualifying the Dayco Mopar Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Funny Car in the bottom half of the field for the first time this season. He squared off with Johnson in the first round and his run of 4.113 seconds at 287.35 mph couldn’t keep pace with his DSR teammate’s Hellcat Funny Car. Hagan continues to rank second in the championship standings through seven events.
Two-time Southern Nationals winner Jack Beckman made his best run of the weekend in Sunday’s opening-round match-up with 16-time Funny Car world champion John Force, but it wasn’t quick enough to advance. Beckman muscled the Infinite Hero Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat down the Atlanta track at 4.040 seconds at 312.78 mph only to see Force deep stage, take the starting line advantage and lead throughout the run with his lap of 3.994 ET at 327.74 mph.
In other first-round action with Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Funny Cars competing, Cruz Pedregon lost to Wilkerson and Jim Campbell wasn’t able to make a clean run versus J.R. Todd.
In Top Fuel, going back-to-back in Atlanta was the goal of the weekend for Leah Pritchett and her DSR team led by Neil Strausbaugh and Todd Okuhara. The 2018 Southern Nationals champion was looking to become only the fourth Top Fuel driver in the event’s 39-year history to score consecutive event wins in a rail car and first since Doug Kalitta accomplished the feat back in 2005 and 2006.
With Mother Nature knocking out the final qualifying session Saturday, Pritchett began her Atlanta title defense from the fourth position. She was machine-like in her opening round race with Audrey Worm, posting the fourth-best run of the session with her lap of 3.812 seconds at 317.79 mph to earn lane choice in round two. In the second round, Pritchett faced Jordan Vandergriff for the first time and she got the starting line advantage, but her run of 3.898/306.95 came up 0.0105 seconds (approximately 5 feet) short of earning her the victory. Pritchett gained two positions in the standings and heads to Richmond fourth.
Mopar Dodge//SRT NHRA Sportsman Spotlight
Jerry Hatch and Jack Zimmerman added their names to the list of Dodge Top Finisher award winners at Atlanta. Lubec, Maine, native Hatch steered his 1970 Dodge Challenger to a third-round finish to claim the honors in Super Stock, while Zimmerman, hailing from Clemons, North Carolina, earned the honors in Stock in his 1971 Dodge Challenger.
The Dodge Top Finisher award, now in its third year, awards $500 to Stock Eliminator and Super Stock drivers who advance the furthest behind the wheel of a Mopar-powered Dodge, Chrysler, or Plymouth race car at all 24 NHRA national events.
Dodge//SRT Mopar NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series: Notes & Quotes
Ron Capps, NAPA Brakes Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Funny Car
(No. 11 Qualifier – 4.149 ET)
Rd.1: (.064-second reaction time, 4.076 seconds at 315.78 mph) beat No. 6 Shawn Langdon (.060/4.414/202.09)
Rd.2: (.071/4.022/317.57) beat No. 3 John Force (.078/4.312/220.80)
Rd. 3: (.047/4.071/317.19) beat No. 10 Tommy Johnson, Jr. (064/4.091/310.27)
Rd. 4: (.064/4.068/315.34) beat No. 4 Tim Wilkerson (.090/4.052/310.05)
“Today was amazing. It still hasn’t hit me yet. We know we can win from any position, but (starting from 11th) we didn’t have all of the confidence in the world. The NAPA Brakes Dodge was a car you dream about driving. It was going down the lane every time when other people were struggling; cars are having a hard time getting grip and then you have Rahn Tobler pulling out ‘vintage Tobler.’ At the end of the year, you look back on the moments that define the season. We’ve been struggling this year and as a driver, I’ve learned the crew chiefs need you more than ever when they’re searching. Rahn Tobler has made it look easy a lot over the past decade and I’ve been the lucky guy behind the wheel, but you’ve got to be good when they need you the most.”
Tommy Johnson Jr., Make-A-Wish Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Funny Car
(No. 7 Qualifier – 4.031 ET)
Rd.1: (.087-second reaction time, 4.037 seconds at 309.84 mph) beat No. 10 Matt Hagan (.082/4.113/287.35)
Rd. 2: (.079/4.334/218.62) beat No. 2 J.R. Todd (.072/10.638/76.09)
Rd. 3: (.064/4.091/310.27) lost to No. 11 Ron Capps (.047/4.071/317.19)
“I thought we were going to be able to break our Atlanta curse today. We had a good running Dodge Charger SRT in hot conditions and just lost a close one. I’m excited because the summer races are coming and we are running well. It was a good points day, we moved up today. We need to maintain our consistency and stay in this thing and continue to do better. The hot races are coming and with the way we are running, I think our win is coming.”
Matt Hagan, Dayco Mopar Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Funny Car
(No. 10 Qualifier – 4.129 ET)
Rd.1: (.082-second reaction time, 4.113 seconds at 287.35 mph) lost to No. 7 Tommy Johnson, Jr. (.087/4.037/309.84)
“This was a tricky race track for us this weekend. Obviously, we had some issues that we just couldn’t overcome. Usually, our hot rod is like a bracket car; put a 94 on it and go racing. The weather threw us for a loop this weekend and we just got behind the eight ball a little bit.”
Jack Beckman, Infinite Hero Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Funny Car
(No. 14 Qualifier – 5.126 ET)
Rd.1: (.091-second reaction time, 4.040 seconds at 312.78 mph) lost to No. 3 John Force (.038/3.994/327.74)
“Tough weekend. Tough race track. There wasn’t a whole lot of success during qualifying in the Funny Car division and we never made it down. I think with us it was a case of too little, too late this weekend. We figured the car out for first round. We made the quickest run in the right lane and it doesn’t matter. It wasn’t quicker than the car in the other lane. We have to get better. And we want to get better and we will get better. I don’t know if that means staying and testing. Or just going and crunching notes before Richmond. We are so much better than this, but you can’t keep saying that when the race day results reflect it. We will fix the car. We figure out how a way to get win lights and we’ll get it back in the winner circle soon.”
Leah Pritchett, Mopar Dodge Top Fuel Dragster
(No. 4 Qualifier – 3.764 ET)
Rd.1: (.068-second reaction time, 3.812 seconds at 317.79 mph) beat No. 13 Audrey Worm (.157/4.008/289.88)
Rd.2: (.068 /3.898/306.95) lost to No. 5 Jordan Vandergriff (.085/3.871/313.15)
“I think the real winners here today have been the fans. In that second round race, they got to see a real close drag race. We don’t take any of our competition lightly, especially that team. This was our one and only run on a hot track this weekend. We have been wearing more clutch than we wanted to and it kind of bit us right there. This was the hottest track we’ve run on all year. We’re going to take what we learned in that run and take it with us to the races coming up in the summer. We know we have a really good race car. We are all keeping our heads held up high, but we are disappointed. We wanted to go back-to-back with wins here at Atlanta and the fans have fueled that fire. We gave it everything we had and we’re going to keep hunting for more.”
Up Next: Virginia NHRA Nationals
Mopar and Dodge//SRT competitors will head next to the second annual Virginia NHRA Nationals, May 17-19 at Virginia Motorsports Park in Richmond, Virginia. Two-time Funny Car world champion Matt Hagan will look to score his first Funny Car triumph in his home state of Virginia and second of 2019 aboard his Mopar-powered Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Funny Car.