Jon Capps Saturday report

CAPPS MAKES THE SHOW IN BAYTOWN

Baytown, Texas – Jon Capps will make his first NHRA Professional category start since October of 2007 tomorrow when he drives the Biesenbach, Inc. sponsored Paul Smith owned and tuned Funny Car against Tim Wilkerson in a round one match-up at the O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Spring Nationals contested at Royal Purple Raceway in Baytown, Texas.

Capps, the Las Vegas, Nev. resident and automotive admission counselor for WyoTech Automotive Transportation and Technical College, ended up qualifying in the number 15 position when qualifying wrapped up today. He is excited yet cautiously optimistic about his chances for a good showing on Sunday.

“Tim Wilkerson is as classy as they come and that number two effort is an indication of how quick that car can run,” Capps stated. “He is one of those old school guys who owns, tunes and drives his own car. And when you race that LRS Ford, you’ve got to be on your game for sure. However, I’ve got another legendary owner, tuner and former driver himself Paul Smith behind me, and when push comes to shove in eliminations, he is one of the best at getting a car down the track. I’m sure we will have a good tune-up ready for Wilk tomorrow morning.”

The weekend started off wonderful for Capps, as the Paul Smith Racing Monte Carlo impressed the fans and fellow racers in attendance with an off the trailer and solid 4.262 second elapsed time in Q-1. Yet, the team struggled on Saturday getting the car down track during very deceiving and difficult racing conditions.

“We burnt some rubber today,” Capps said in reference to the two tire-smoking efforts in today’s final two sessions. “The conditions were really deceiving today. On one hand it was very warm and humid, but there was some cloud coverage which led us to believe the track could handle the power. When you smoke the tires, you learn how far you can go and you can actually get some good data to tune from. Like I said earlier, Paul is great getting a car down tricky conditions, so I feel pretty good about our chances tomorrow.”

-source: paul smith racing