Seattle: Ron Capps Saturday summary

CAPPS NO. 9 IN SEATTLE QUALIFYING

KENT, Wash. (July 23, 2005) - Ron Capps continues his steady course down the quarter-mile in the 2005 NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series Funny Car class, recording four stout qualifying passes in the Brut Dodge Stratus at the CARQUEST Auto Parts NHRA Nationals at Pacific Raceway this weekend, to place him No. 9 in the field.

His 4.864/312.78 in the first session was good for sixth place at the time, while the laps that followed where consistent passes of 4.823/313.22, 4.862/313.66 and 4.887/310.63, but did not help improve his position at this track in the Northwest corner of the country.

"It's been one of those grueling weekends already," he said, "just watching the weather change and the clouds come in. That last session we watched a lot of cars in front of us. Cruz Pedregon smoked the tires directly in front of us. (When you're sitting in the staging lane) until you get to some cars that you can watch and see if the track is going to hold anything, these crew chiefs (including Cruz's Wes Cerny) don't know a lot."

The California native who is fourth in the Funny Car point standings, will face Phil Burkart Jr. in the first round of eliminations on Sunday.

"One good thing is the guys are running good in both lanes," he added. "Because we're No. 9 qualifier we're not going to have lane choice against Burkart, but I feel we're OK as far as lanes are concerned. We didn't qualify as good as we wanted to, but there are some good match-ups when you look at the points."

"As good as we did in St. Louis in the heat (he won), I think we're pretty confident. I'm surprised the 4.887 came up on the board (in the last round). When they yelled at me on the radio I thought they said .98 and I would have been happy with that, as that would have been low of the round at that point. We're very happy with the .88. All four runs were in different conditions, so it's 'hats off' to (crew chief Ed) McCulloch and all the Brut guys."