Capps ready for title defense in 2017

After nearly 20 years of circling the title, finishing second four times and always coming up a heart-breaking short of the championship, last year Ron Capps fulfilled a legacy and earned his first title, helped by four-time tuning champ Rahn Tobler and assistant Eric Lane. 

This threesome, serious at work, are more like a bunch of school kids when off the clock, spending time together and bonding as a group. It’s never unusual for the entire team to take meals together while on the road. With little or no turnover on their team over the past couple of seasons, it’s evident that they are formidable. It was just making that last step to attain the ultimate goal of a championship that eluded them - until the final Saturday night of the final race of the 2016 season.

After that, it was time for celebration. And then time for preparation for a title defense over 24 races on the 2017 calendar. Tobler, Lane and their DSR crew worked mightily through the short off-season and are testing this week at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park outside Phoenix, Ariz., (site of the second race of the season), to be ready for the season opener next weekend on the Auto Club Raceway at Pomona dragstrip (Feb 9-12).

Looking for a repeat performance

Capps, who won the 2016 season starter en route to his first Funny Car championship, enters as the defending race winner next weekend. It’s always important to start the year strong and, for Southern California resident Capps, racing this year with the No. 1, rather than No. 28 on his Charger is a brand new experience. “I’ve been No. 28 in Funny Car since 1997. It’s something I haven’t gone through yet,” having a champion’s number on his blue-and-yellow NAPA car, “but I can’t say how excited I am to do it and represent Mello Yello and NHRA as a champion.”

Since attaining his lifelong goal of a Funny Car title, Capps has had “so many high points that seemed to outdo themselves” during the off-season. “It really started right after Pomona with things I have done every single season: the Blaine Johnson golf tournament, the awards banquet and then our Capps Fan Cruise we do every year, a week after” the racing season ends.

Every time someone called him “Champ,” Capps just simply “couldn’t comprehend it. You come close, you leave Pomona not winning a championship and you don’t understand how big a deal it is until it happens. Walking through the house and seeing the trophy is amazing,” he said. “I’m lucky my wife has allowed me to put the trophy in the house where it is, right when you walk in the door. There isn’t a lot of racing stuff we have out in the house but she understood the importance and how much we put into our life to achieve it. Walking into the house,” in the Carlsbad area near San Diego, “walking by that trophy every day, I can’t explain it to someone who hasn’t gone through it.”

Never needed the title to be great

Capps never felt he had to win the championship, despite being the Funny Car driver with the most wins (50) who had never won a title until last year. By comparison, competitor John Force has 145 wins at 16 titles. “It did get old hearing that, as it’s easy to get a little quirky when that’s brought up by a reporter every time, and you start to get tired hearing of it.” He kept a level head, didn’t lose focus: “Even though we were fighting our teammates, that was hard to do.”

Before Tobler came onboard, Capps worked with the legendary Ed “Ace” McCulloch, who never, as a driver or crew chief won a championship. “I didn’t realize that even working with him several years,” Capps explained. It would have been difficult for the driver to accept coming up short again as last year’s campaign drew to a close. “It would have been a bummer after the season we had, five wins, all the track records set, the killer runs we made. Last year was, by far the toughest in Funny Car. I know we say that every year, but it was so tough this past year.”

If there is one driver who considers Capps the toughest competitor in the Funny Car ranks, it’s got to be John Force, the 16-time category champ who constantly talks about taking on Capps and considers that a measuring stick for his own success. After hearing Force saying that he gets pumped up to race fellow Californian Capps, “I don’t know if we have had a target on our backs in the past, but I have always felt like when we race someone, it always brings out the best in them. There is no better compliment to get from someone in NHRA than for them to tell you that when they race you, it brings out the absolute best in them. That is the ultimate compliment to get from another racer - and we get that a lot.”

The new race season brings changes for every single team in NHRA’s open and accessible paddock. That’s no different for the NAPA crew as they start the year with a new, DSR-built chassis. Capps recently returned to the team’s Brownsburg, Ind. base for a seat fitting and the requisite annual photo shoot. “It was so nice to be back in the shop and hear Tobler go over everything he had gone over in the car, what the approach is going to be, hearing all the team members telling me what we are going to be doing with our brand new chassis.

“There are some cool things I don’t know that some teams can brag about and it is so refreshing to hear about,” but of course he can’t divulge those secrets. “Driving the race car and competing is only a fraction of what I do. It is nice to have a car so well prepared that I can get into it and [there’s] not a lot I have to worry about.”