Ron Capps and the NAPA Auto Care Funny Car team opened the second race of the NHRA Countdown to the Championship with a strong showing Friday at Rockingham Dragway, collecting five crucial bonus points and powering to the provisional No. 1 position after two rounds of qualifying at the inaugural NHRA Nationals at The Rock.
\u00a0
Capps, who entered the weekend ranked fourth in the Funny Car standings and 63 points out of first, wasted little time showing why he is one of the leading title contenders. The three-time world champion opened qualifying with a solid 3.926-second pass at 330.40 mph to slot into the No. 2 position. The run was second-quickest of the session and earned Capps two bonus points.
\u00a0
With favorable conditions setting the stage for a quick second session, Capps and his Dean \u2018Guido\u2019 Antonelli-led team took full advantage. Capps launched the NAPA Auto Care Funny Car, which carries SKF branding as part of a special one-race partnership, to a stout 3.870-second blast at 330.40 mph, rocketing to the top of the Funny Car timing sheets and collecting three more bonus points for clocking the quickest run of the session.
\u00a0
The Q2 performance also earned Capps the Funny Car \u201cLast Driver Standing\u201d low qualifier bonus, which awarded the quickest driver of the session $1,000 along with an ASUS ROG Flow Z13 Nebula laptop courtesy of IGTG and Perimeter.One.
\u00a0
\u201cMy son Caden is at home; he didn\u2019t get to make it this weekend, and he\u2019s going to be so excited about this,\u201d Capps said of his new laptop. \u201cI\u2019m freaking out right now because I was a kid growing up reading about Rockingham Dragway, and the next thing you know, I\u2019m here driving for the legendary Don Prudhomme in 1997, and I was actually in the final round the last time NHRA raced here in \u201898. To come back here, now as a team owner, and go to FanFest last night and see all the fans who have been clamoring for a national event here was just awesome. We had so many partners come out this weekend, we\u2019re just all so happy to be back here.\u201d
\u00a0
Capps arrived in Rockingham looking to make up ground in the championship battle after opening the six-race Countdown to the Championship last weekend in Martin, Mich., where he recorded a new career-best speed of 339.37 mph before bowing out in the quarterfinals. Rockingham marks the second of three consecutive races to open the playoffs and, like last weekend\u2019s event, is a new addition to the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series schedule.
\u00a0
For Capps and Antonelli, Friday\u2019s performance also carried added significance given their history competing at Rockingham Dragway during earlier stages of their careers.
\u00a0
\u201cGuido and I are like these two OG dogs, having flashbacks of all these memories from way back in the day,\u201d Capps said. \u201cWe were on different teams back then, so this is really cool. Maddi (Gordon) and I came here right after Gainesville to do some media, and it was so weird being back here after all those years. It\u2019s so historic, and such an iconic facility.\u201d
\u00a0
Capps will have two opportunities on Saturday to defend his position atop the Funny Car field. If his 3.870-second effort holds through the final two qualifying sessions, he will secure his fourth No. 1 qualifier of the season and 41st of his career.
\u00a0
Qualifying for the inaugural NHRA Nationals at The Rock continues Saturday with two scheduled sessions at noon and 2:30 p.m. ET before eliminations begin Sunday.<\/p>\n
The post Ron Capps Rockets to Provisional No. 1 Qualifier at Rockingham Dragway<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ron Capps and the NAPA Auto Care Funny Car team opened the second race of the NHRA Countdown to the Championship with a strong showing Friday at Rockingham Dragway, collecting five crucial bonus points and powering to the provisional No. 1 position after two rounds of qualifying at the inaugural NHRA Nationals at The Rock.\u00a0Capps, […]<\/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-104881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104881","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=104881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104881\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}