Charlotte: Ron Capps Saturday report

CAPPS STAYS NO. 2 IN CONCORD

CONCORD, N.C. (March 27, 2010) - Ron Capps maintained the No. 2 spot he earned yesterday (4.039 seconds at 310.34 mph) through two more qualifying sessions today for the Inaugural NHRA Four-Wide Nationals, driving the NAPA AUTO PARTS Dodge Charger Funny Car.

His final two attempts produced a less-than-stellar 7.280/89.30 and a 5.353/117.41.

"A great day of weather," he said. "We obviously were going after it pretty good in that last run. We ran the 4.03 last night and Ace (crew chief Ed McCulloch) felt like in the conditions this last run we could have repeated or maybe ran a little bit better. We went after it pretty good, but it just pulled the tires loose at about half track.

"I feel good about tomorrow. Every driver is in the same boat (racing four-wide). It's going to be a unique experience and two cars are going to come back from each session. So, fans are going to get their fill of four-wide racing tomorrow. I feel pretty confident.

"Conditions were there," he said of posting his season-best run last night. "Actually, it was on the verge of being too cold last night. So, to be honest with you, I know when (John Force Racing crew chief) Jimmy Prock and Robert Hight ran that 4.02 in front of us, we knew that the track was going to hold it. So, Ace threw everything at it and it was far from a perfect run. To have a 4.03 come up on the board and have the NAPA guys a little disappointed is pretty neat because they expected more. We thought we could throw the first three-second run out there and it came up a little bit short.

"We have another storm coming in and it's going to bring in cool conditions again and you may very well see record-setting runs tomorrow."

Capps faces Jeff Diehl, Tim Wilkerson and Melanie Troxel in the opening round of Sunday's eliminations.

-source: dsr