When Ron Capps lifted the car cover off of his Don \u201cThe Snake\u201d Prudhomme Army tribute car at an NHRA press conference on Wednesday afternoon, he kicked off another tribute campaign to his former team owner that he hopes will end up in the winner\u2019s circle again on Monday at this weekend\u2019s 70th annual Toyota NHRA U.S. Nationals. The unveiling came just a few days shy of one year after Capps won his second consecutive U.S. Nationals title with a special Hot Wheels \u201cSnake and Mongoose\u201d-themed livery on his NAPA Auto Parts Toyota GR Supra.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Last year\u2019s tribute car, which recognized the 50th anniversary of Prudhomme\u2019s Funny Car win at the 1973 U.S. Nationals, required a long approval process through Capps\u2019s primary sponsor, NAPA, as well as Mattel, the parent company of Hot Wheels. The popularity of Capps\u2019 \u201cSnake\u201d tribute car throughout the 2023 U.S. Nationals weekend, as well as through the months after it won with Prudhomme in attendance, made it that much easier to get NAPA\u2019s approval again to bring out the Army-inspired car.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cFor [NAPA] to do what they did last year was amazing; same for this year,\u201d said Capps, a three-time world champion. \u201cI called Katherine [Wooten] there and gave her the history of this car like I did with the Hot Wheels car. I sent her everything. It was like I gave her an education on our sport\u2019s history. She didn\u2019t know much about the history of the Hot Wheel cars or the Army car, but they\u2019ve seen how much the Hot Wheels car touched the fans. I\u2019ve had people running into me in the airport out of the blue, teared up, saying how much that car meant to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the Hot Wheels car last year being so tied to the historic milestone, Capps didn\u2019t intend to run it again. He did toy with the idea of running it against a matching Tom \u201cThe Mongoose\u201d McEwen tribute car at some point this year, an idea he pitched to John Force late last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI was at the banquet at the end of the year and Force and I were standing in the corner talking. I said, \u2018You need to do a Mongoose car and I\u2019ll do the Snake car again and we\u2019ll run maybe Norwalk Night Under Fire,\u201d Capps said. \u201cHe was thinking about it, and in his head, he\u2019s trying to figure out his sponsors and how he could pull it off. He brought it back up to me at a race earlier this year. It\u2019d be fun. The Mongoose, I was pretty tight with him, so [a tribute car] would be something pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n
Capps, an avid fan of many other types of motorsports, points out that NASCAR has a special throwback weekend on its schedule, where teams pay tribute to former drivers and liveries at Darlington Raceway. Could NHRA have something similar? Capps thinks so.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we have better cars to choose from than NASCAR has for tributes,\u201d Capps said. \u201cWhen we were kids, we\u2019d build the Snake and the Mongoose models and play with the Hot Wheels cars. You had Jungle Jim and Big Daddy and Ed \u2018The Ace\u2019 McCulloch and the \u2018Revellution\u2019 and all these cars you could choose from.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the incredible on-track and off-track success of the Hot Wheels car last year, Capps wasn\u2019t so sure about bringing out another throwback look for this year\u2019s 70th running of the U.S. Nationals. If he did another one, it would need to have a similar historical significance. Enter Prudhomme\u2019s patriotic Army car, which made its debut 50 years ago in 1974. Prudhomme wore the red, white, and blue colors for one of the most significant stretches of his driving career.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was 50 years ago when he first started campaigning this car that went on an onslaught,\u201d Capps said. \u201cI think it won all but two races one year and all but one race the next year. It was insane. It was more than just running a tribute car. It was the history part for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
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With designs inspired by two of the most iconic Funny Cars in drag racing history, Capps set the bar high with his first two tribute cars. He can\u2019t say for sure whether or not he\u2019ll do one next year or some other time down the road, but he has no shortage of ideas for drivers or cars he\u2019d recognize with another throwback look.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI grew up loving Funny Cars and Fuel Altereds, so I could name you a list of cars I\u2019d love to do,\u201d Capps said. \u201cMy next favorite car would be \u2013 because I got to work with him and he\u2019s one of my heroes \u2013 Ed McCulloch\u2019s car. Definitely the \u2018Revellution\u2019 more than any of them. The \u2018Jungle Jim\u2019 car, I\u2019ve done a lot of nostalgia racing and they\u2019ve got those out there. The Blue Max car, I got to drive Del [Worsham\u2019s], which is as close to the real car, when I drove his nostalgia car. So those are the cars \u2013 Ace, Jungle, and [Raymond] Beadle \u2013 that are at the top of my head besides the Snake and the Mongoose and the Army car.\u201d<\/p>\n
This story was originally published on August 29, 2024. <\/p>\n
The post Ron Capps Talks Tribute Cars Ahead of 70th NHRA U.S. Nationals\u00a0<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When Ron Capps lifted the car cover off of his Don \u201cThe Snake\u201d Prudhomme Army tribute car at an NHRA press conference on Wednesday afternoon, he kicked off another tribute campaign to his former team owner that he hopes will end up in the winner\u2019s circle again on Monday at this weekend\u2019s 70th annual Toyota […]<\/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-95682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95682","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=95682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95682\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}