One year after driving his Don \u2018The Snake\u2019 Prudhomme Hot Wheels tribute car to the Funny Car victory at the 2023 NHRA U.S. Nationals, Ron Capps will pay tribute to his former team owner yet again at this weekend\u2019s 70th annual Toyota NHRA U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis Raceway Park.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Capps\u2019 NAPA Auto Care Toyota GR Supra will sport a special red, white, and blue livery modeled after Prudhomme\u2019s Army Funny Car, which went on a dominant run after its debut in 1974. The three-time world champion is chasing his third consecutive win at the most prestigious event of the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
1977 Drag Racing1977 Drag Racing<\/p>\n
Capps\u2019 win in the \u2018Snake\u2019 Hot Wheels tribute car at last year\u2019s U.S. Nationals came on the 50th anniversary of Prudhomme\u2019s win at the 1973 U.S. Nationals. Prudhomme himself was a part of the NAPA team all weekend, from warming up the Toyota GR Supra before the first qualifying session on Friday to standing behind Capps on the starting line for the final round on Monday afternoon. It was Capps\u2019 second consecutive win in his third consecutive final round at the Big Go.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cRunning the Hot Wheels Don Prudhomme tribute car at the U.S. Nationals, having \u2018Snake\u2019 there, and then winning the race was certainly one of the highlights of my career,\u201d said Capps, who drove for Prudhomme\u2019s Snake Racing team from 1997 through 2004. \u201cIt\u2019s been talked about since last year, and \u2018Snake\u2019 has told me it\u2019s one of the coolest things that he\u2019s been around, and that\u2019s saying something coming from Don Prudhomme. It\u2019s hard to top that, but there\u2019s only one car that\u2019s cooler than that car, and that\u2019s the Army car that Don ran.\u201d<\/p>\n
The U.S. Army started its partnership with Prudhomme in 1974 and continued to support \u2018The Snake\u2019 through the 1980 season. During that time, he went on one of the most dominant stretches in NHRA history.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Army car that Snake ran was such a dominant car,\u201d Capps said. \u201cI don\u2019t think a lot of fans nowadays understand just how dominant that race car was. Almost half of his Funny Car wins were in that livery. All four of his Funny Car world championships were in the Army car. I had the Army model from Revell that I built as a kid. Shoot, I wanted to join the Army just because of that Funny Car. But going back to 1975, Don Prudhomme in the Army car won all but two national events the whole season. In 1976, he won all but one of the national events on the NHRA tour. It\u2019s pretty amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the time Capps and Prudhomme raced together, they added 13 event wins to Prudhomme\u2019s long list of accolades. The 2023 U.S. Nationals victory with the Hot Wheels tribute car added another win to the duo\u2019s tally, and now 20 years after their last full season together, Capps and Prudhomme have the opportunity to add yet another historic victory.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cDon Prudhomme gave me my start in Funny Car,\u201d Capps said. \u201cHe saw something in me, and I never had to bring money to the table. It was something I\u2019ll never forget. Being able to drive for one of the coolest guys in the sport, let alone in motor racing, is pretty neat. But to be able to give back like we did last year and run such a historic car was great.\u201d<\/p>\n
Just like last season, Capps and his Ron Capps Motorsports team went all-in on the throwback look, including special old-school crew uniforms and hats. Last year, the Hot Wheels tribute car won the Best Appearing Car award and the uniforms won the Best Appearing Crew title. The team\u2019s partners all signed off on the one-race look as a tribute to Prudhomme and a unique element for the fans at the 70th running of the NHRA U.S. Nationals.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThanks again to NAPA for helping us do something so cool,\u201d Capps said. \u201cI hope our fans will visit one of their thousands of auto parts stores and auto care and collision centers for all of their aftermarket needs.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 70th annual Toyota NHRA U.S. Nationals, Aug. 28-Sept. 2, will include Funny Car qualifying sessions on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, with eliminations contested on Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The post Ron Capps Returns to 70th Annual Toyota U.S. Nationals with Don Prudhomme Army Tribute Car<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One year after driving his Don \u2018The Snake\u2019 Prudhomme Hot Wheels tribute car to the Funny Car victory at the 2023 NHRA U.S. Nationals, Ron Capps will pay tribute to his former team owner yet again at this weekend\u2019s 70th annual Toyota NHRA U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis Raceway Park.\u00a0 Capps\u2019 NAPA Auto Care Toyota GR […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95655","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"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95655\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}