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<\/p>\nNHRA team owner\/driver Ron Capps is pleased to announce the addition of crew chief Rob Flynn to his expanding Ron Capps Motorsports organization. Flynn has been named lead tuner of the Carlyle Tools Top Fuel dragster, which will be driven by Maddi Gordon in 2026 when she embarks on her rookie season competing in NHRA\u2019s professional ranks.
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In April, Capps revealed he had plans to expand his single-car operation to a two-car team and had selected Gordon, a second-year, third-generation Top Alcohol Funny Car pilot, as the driver of his team\u2019s first Top Fuel entry. At the SEMA show earlier this month, Capps and Gordon broke the news that Carlyle Tools had signed on to back the future Rookie of the Year candidate as the team\u2019s primary partner.
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\u201cIt really feels like everything is starting to come together now,\u201d said Capps, who just wrapped his fourth year as an NHRA team owner. \u201cWe have the driver, we recently announced the sponsor, we\u2019ve started acquiring assets, and now with the addition of Rob, it feels like we\u2019ve got all the major items in place and can start to fill in the blanks and really proceed full speed ahead with our 2026 plans.
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\u201cI\u2019ve known Rob and his family for quite a long time,\u201d Capps added. \u201cWe worked together at Don Prudhomme\u2019s years ago when I drove for Snake. I\u2019ve always admired him and his style of leading a team. What\u2019s always impressed me about him is his professionalism on and off the track. He\u2019s got a great record, and we feel he will be a great fit with our organization. Ultimately, it was up to Guido (Dean Antonelli, crew chief on Capps\u2019 NAPA Auto Care Funny Car). Since we first decided to expand the team and add a dragster, I\u2019ve always said it was his decision because even though they\u2019ll be running two completely different cars, they\u2019ll be working together. Rob has always been at the top of our list, and I\u2019m so happy that it all worked out.\u201d
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Flynn brings more than three decades of tuning knowledge to the Carlyle Tools Top Fuel team. His track record includes 36 wins as a nitro crew chief, but what might be his biggest asset is Flynn\u2019s prior experience working with a rookie driver. Before joining Ron Capps Motorsports, Flynn worked at Scrappers Racing, where he was the crew chief on Jasmine Salinas\u2019 Top Fuel dragster. Salinas made her Top Fuel debut in 2024 with Flynn calling the shots, and in 2025, during her sophomore season, the team came out swinging. Flynn tuned Salinas to back-to-back semifinal appearances at the first two races of the year. She advanced to the quarterfinals at the third event and powered to the final quad at the Las Vegas Four-Wide Nationals before funding issues sidelined the team.
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\u201cI\u2019m looking forward to working with Maddi next year,\u201d said Flynn, whose crew chief tenure includes working with star drivers such as \u201cHot\u201d Rod Fuller, Leah Pruett and past world champions Doug Kalitta, Shawn Langdon, and Tony Schumacher, among others. \u201cI learned a lot working with Jasmine these last two years, and it was a pretty similar situation where she came to the team with driving experience, but was new to nitro, which, as we all know, is a whole different beast. You could really see this past year that she felt comfortable in the car and had grown confident in her abilities, and that really translated on the track. Definitely one of the biggest things I learned was not to rush things and push too hard. Early on that first year, I think I pushed too hard when I should have been focusing on getting the car to go down the track, A to B. I want to give Maddi lots of straight, smooth runs down the track and build some confidence that the car is going to go to the finish line every time. Of course, there will be times where there\u2019s some tire shake or tire smoke, but I think if Maddi feels confident that we\u2019re going to give her a car that will go down the track and not put her in a position where she\u2019s behind it, that will help make her feel more comfortable and at ease. Most drivers say it takes 50-60 runs to get comfortable, and I think that tracks. So, my plan is to spend that time getting Maddi used to making runs, and then we can step it up from there.\u201d
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Gordon, age 21, agrees with Flynn\u2019s approach and is grateful to have him in her corner next year when she branches out from her family\u2019s operation.
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\u201cI feel so lucky we were able to lock Rob in as my crew chief,\u201d Gordon said. \u201cIt\u2019s comforting knowing that he has experience with first-year drivers. Jasmine and Rob were off to a great start last year, and it was a bummer they weren\u2019t able to keep that going but I\u2019m glad when the opportunity became available, we were able to scoop him up.\u201d\u00a0
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Gordon, who closed out her stint as a Top Alcohol Funny Car driver with three national event wins and a third-place finish, will begin the Top Fuel licensing process this winter. She will make her professional debut aboard the Carlyle Tools Top Fuel dragster at the season-opening NHRA Gatornationals in Gainesville, Fla., March 6 \u2013 8.<\/p>\n
This story was originally published on November 19, 2025. <\/p>\n
The post Rob Flynn Named Crew Chief of Maddi Gordon\u2019s Carlyle Tools Top Fuel Dragster<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NHRA team owner\/driver Ron Capps is pleased to announce the addition of crew chief Rob Flynn to his expanding Ron Capps Motorsports organization. Flynn has been named lead tuner of the Carlyle Tools Top Fuel dragster, which will be driven by Maddi Gordon in 2026 when she embarks on her rookie season competing in NHRA\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102594\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}