Ron Capps put his NAPA Auto Care Funny Car in position for a successful Sunday run at the NHRA Route 66 Nationals, qualifying No. 2 and earning bonus points, before bowing out in a tire-smoking quarterfinal match with Chad Green at Route 66 Raceway outside Chicago. Capps, a two-time winner six races into the 2026 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series season, moved back into the points lead, which he shares with J.R. Todd.
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Capps, who has raced at Route 66 Raceway since the inaugural event in 1998, wrapped up day one as the provisional No. 2 qualifier on Friday thanks to his 3.916-second pass at 330.31 mph in the second session. He earned two championship bonus points with that effort, as it was the second-quickest pass of the session. Capps drove into tire smoke early in the third qualifying session on Saturday, but he bounced back in the final session with a 3.952 E.T. at 326.79 mph, the third-quickest pass of the round, to pick up another bonus point and maintain the No. 2 position going into race day. Maddi Gordon, driver of Ron Capps Motorsports\u2019 Carlyle Tools Top Fuel dragster, also qualified second.
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Capps met up with Chicagoland\u2019s own Bobby Bode in the opening round of eliminations on Sunday. Capps lost power as he approached the finish line, but his 3.978 E.T. at 301.47 mph was still more than enough to defeat Bode\u2019s 4.659-second effort. A wild pedalfest followed in the second round against Chad Green. Capps moved first before both drivers went into tire smoke almost immediately. Capps worked the throttle to regain traction, but it was Green who recovered quicker and got the round win.
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\u201cWe had a great weekend with both cars \u2013 our car and Maddi\u2019s Carlyle Tools dragster \u2013 qualified No. 2, and we felt great going into Sunday,\u201d Capps said. \u201cThe weather wasn\u2019t like everybody thought it would be today. We had heat come in and the track got trickier. The second round of Funny Car was just bizarre. It was a matter of who could just get down the track. It was a learning curve for us on Sunday, but overall, another great weekend for Ron Capps Motorsports.\u201d
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Though Capps\u2019 race day didn\u2019t last as long as he would\u2019ve liked, he found highlights in the off-track aspects of the weekend.
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\u201cThis track is still considered one of the coolest places, and I remember the first year we came here. I still get that feeling when we come here,\u201d Capps said. \u201cI\u2019ve always loved this track because it\u2019s another home facility of sorts with a lot of the family members of our crew members coming up from Indy. That\u2019s very important to me. We were also able to host Dorman Products, a great partner with NAPA Auto Parts. We had a fun time with a lot of their customers and a lot of first-timers, which is always great when you can bring somebody out and introduce them to NHRA Drag Racing.\u201d
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Capps and the NAPA Auto Care Funny Car team will now shift their focus to becoming the first Funny Car winners at the inaugural NHRA Potomac Nationals, May 29-31, at Maryland International Raceway in Mechanicsville, Maryland. Prior, they will compete at the IHRA Triple Crown in Reading, Pa., over Memorial Day weekend, kicking off a grueling schedule of five consecutive race weekends.<\/p>\n
The post Strong Qualifying Effort, Quarterfinal Finish in Chicago Moves Ron Capps Back to the Top of the Funny Car Standings<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ron Capps put his NAPA Auto Care Funny Car in position for a successful Sunday run at the NHRA Route 66 Nationals, qualifying No. 2 and earning bonus points, before bowing out in a tire-smoking quarterfinal match with Chad Green at Route 66 Raceway outside Chicago. Capps, a two-time winner six races into the 2026 […]<\/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-103649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103649","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=103649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103649\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}