Englishtown: Ron Capps Friday summary

ENGLISHTOWN, N.J. (June 18, 2004) Ron Capps powered his green Skoal RacingSM Chevy Monte Carlo to the No. 5 qualifying position Friday after two rounds of Funny Car qualifying at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park. Capps used a Roland Leong ...

ENGLISHTOWN, N.J. (June 18, 2004) Ron Capps powered his green Skoal RacingSM Chevy Monte Carlo to the No. 5 qualifying position Friday after two rounds of Funny Car qualifying at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park.

Capps used a Roland Leong tune-up and drove his Don "the Snake" Prudhomme-owned Chevy flopper to a run of 4.906 seconds at 312.94 mph on Friday's final run to claim the No. 5 spot after two of four scheduled qualifying attempts at the famed New Jersey facility. On his opening effort of the weekend, the 14-time NHRA winner raced to a run of 5.301 at 244.85 on a hot race track that exceeded 120 degrees. Most crew chiefs would agree that an ideal race track is around 80 degrees.

"We weren't going for the No. 1 spot," Capps said. "Roland (Leong) really believes in getting the consistency back in the race car and maybe sacrificing a little E.T. and not being the quickest car, but having consistency on race day because race day is when you have to perform. He told me it would run 4.90-4.93 and he was right on the money because it ran 4.90. It was smooth where a lot of other cars smoked the tires and you can't ask for much more than that."

Capps, who will celebrate his 39th birthday on Sunday, aims to move up in the Funny Car order when qualifying resumes with nitro sessions at 1 and 4 p.m. (ET) on Saturday at Raceway Park.