Bristol: Ron Capps Saturday summary

CAPPS NAILS NO. 8 IN BRISTOL QUALIFYING

BRISTOL, Tenn. (April 29, 2006) - Ron Capps continued his steady, consistent performance in the 2006 NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series, by qualifying No. 8 today for the O'Reilly NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals at Bristol Dragway.

The Brut Dodge Stratus R/T Funny Car driver and Funny Car points leader posted four solid qualifying passes: 4.918/281.60, 4.818/320.58 (for No. 8), 4.926/302.14 and 4.967/260.01.

Qualifying for this field proved tough for a number of top drivers this weekend: Del Worsham squeaked into No. 16 in the final session, and familiar names, such as Bob Gilbertson, Frank Pedregon and Mike Ashley, failed to qualify.

"As you can tell, there were a lot of really, really good teams fighting to get into the show this weekend," said Capps. "Our main objective always is to qualify the best we can, and our very next goal is to have lane choice and to be in the top half of the field, which we accomplished.

"It's not exactly as high as we wanted to qualify, but we have lane choice and it's a fresh start Sunday morning.

"This track is very, very tricky to get down and Ace (crew chief Ed McCulloch) and the Brut Dodge guys have done a great job. There are some bumps that you have to negotiate. It's going to be interesting to see what happens with lane choice tomorrow.

"Again, it's real early to be talking about anything (regarding the points lead). We're just trying to keep our sights right in front of us in each race as far as goals go. Once again, like I said at the races we've won - Gainesville and Houston - it's going to be a tough race tomorrow."

Capps will meet No. 9 qualifier Scott Kalitta in first round of eliminations on Sunday.

-dsr