Denver: Ron Capps Saturday report

CAPPS SNAGS NO. 5 IN DENVER QUALIFYING

MORRISON, Colo. (July 24, 2010) - Ron Capps placed the NAPA AUTO PARTS Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car in No. 5 in qualifying for the Mopar Mile-High NHRA Nationals at Bandimere Speedway today, posting a 4.221-second pass at 293.73 mph during the Friday night session.

His other laps were a 4.949/162.18 (No. 6) in the first round on Friday, and a 4.753/191.91 (No. 4) and 4.229/297.29, the third quickest pass of the final round, on Saturday.

"We knew the weather was coming in and that there was going to be some cloud cover, which there was," said Capps, of his final try. "I was joking with John (Medlen, crew chief) and Ace (Ed McCulloch, Don Schumacher Racing team consultant) up in the lounge and I was kind of hinting that we were going to run a mid- to low-teen and they were looking at me like I was crazy. I made a joke that I said somebody is going to do it; it might as well be us.

"We tried to run that. John said the track got significantly better when the cooler weather came in and it just ate up a lot of the tune-up. It still went down there great.

"Ashley (Force Hood in the opposite lane) left before the tree was activated, and that kind of startled me for a second, so I had to get my wits about me and just tried to run it down there the best I could.

"We wanted to back up and protect our 4.121-second track record from last year. We protected it so far and it was great to see my DSR teammate Matt Hagan in the Mopar car run low elapsed time (4.161/301.33) and grab the pole. But we were shooting for the same spot.

"Right now I have so much confidence in this NAPA car. It's great to go up there and know that we have a shot at the pole every time or the quickest run of that session."

Capps faces Tony Pedregon in the opening round of Sunday's eliminations.

-source: dsr