After battling through three rounds of eliminations at the Texas NHRA FallNationals, Ron Capps and his NAPA Auto Care Funny Car team met up with points leader Austin Prock in the final round to fight it out for a Wally, a points boost, and a Texas cowboy hat. A parachute malfunction early in the run acted like an anchor for Capps, though, preventing him from giving Prock a side-by-side race. After the fourth of six Countdown to the Championship playoff events, the three-time world champion remains in the No. 4 position in the Funny Car point standings but having made significant progress in narrowing the points deficit.
Capps and crew chief Dean ‘Guido’ Antonelli showed promise early in the weekend, as Capps began qualifying with a 3.965-second pass at 327.84 mph, the third-quickest of the first session, to earn one bonus point. He snagged two more bonus points in the second session with his 3.889 E.T. at 334.55 mph, which propelled him to the No. 2 position. Traction problems bit Capps in Saturday’s two sessions, but his standout performance on Friday night kept him in the No. 2 spot going into race day.
Capps paired up with Alex Laughlin in the opening round of eliminations on Sunday morning. He drove around Laughlin and made it to the finish line first, but an engine explosion near the finish line stole some E.T. from Capps. It also damaged Capps’ NAPA Auto Care Toyota GR Supra body and led the team to bring out the Carlyle Tools body Capps ran at the U.S. Nationals in September. He rebounded in the second round, defeating Cruz Pedregon with a 4.042 E.T. at 314.97 mph. In the semifinals, Capps launched first ahead of Daniel Wilkerson and held on to get the holeshot win with a 4.019 E.T. at 315.81 mph over Wilkerson’s 3.983-second pass.
Capps and final-round opponent Austin Prock left the starting line separated by just six thousandths of a second. Shortly after launching, the parachutes popped out behind the Carlyle Tools/NAPA Auto Care Toyota GR Supra and slowed Capps to a 4.405 E.T. at 199.80 mph to finish as the runner-up for the second straight year at the Motorplex and the fifth time in his career.
“Just one of those gut-check days for the NAPA Auto Care Toyota guys,” said Capps, a two-time winner of the FallNationals. “It was driver error in the first round, but we got by. Unfortunately, it damaged the body – not badly, as it’s fixable, but we couldn’t run it second round. We brought out the Carlyle Tools body, which we’re going to run in Las Vegas, and we were hoping to get a win there. It was cool that a lot of fans have bought our Carlyle shirts and, I guess the positive thing is, they got to see the Carlyle car in-person make the final round today. It was strange in the final. Prock poked his nose out there, but the car felt like it was running well. We came into this weekend wanting to make up ground in the points and we had to, and that’s exactly what we did. So proud of our NAPA Toyota team and let’s see if we can keep this momentum going into Las Vegas.”
After a three-week break, Capps and the Ron Capps Motorsports team will continue their quest for another Funny Car world championship at the penultimate race of the Countdown to the Championship, the NHRA Nevada Nationals, Oct. 31-Nov. 2, at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
This story was originally published on October 13, 2025.
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