Dream weekend at Maple Grove has Capps, NAPA Dodge team ready for Gateway this weekend after winning, retaking Countdown lead
BROWNSBURG, IN – Ron Capps should have had a couple solid nights of sleep this week before flying to St. Louis to 
get ready for this weekend’s NHRA Midwest Nationals at Gateway Motorsports Park.
After the best start to a season in his 22-year career, Capps, the reigning NHRA Funny Car world champion, and the NAPA Brakes Dodge Charger R/T team led by crew chief Rahn Tobler and assistant Eric Lane devoted much of the summer working to further enhance performance.
The team had won six of the first 13 Mello Yello Drag Racing Series events and built a massive lead in the regular-season standings and started the six-race Countdown to the Championship playoff three weeks ago as the No. 1 seed.
But after qualifying No. 8 and losing in the second round to open the Countdown near Charlotte, Capps fell out of the points lead for the first time since the end of April.
“It was unique that we hadn’t wion a race for a while,” he said of Charlotte being the sixth straight event without a trip to the winner’s circle. “At Charlotte, I went out second round on a holeshot and it was the worst week ever for me. I wasn’t super late, but you lose on a holeshot and you feel like it’s all you.
“(Last) this week I’d sleep two hours, wake up in the middle of the night, pick up my phone, look at the points, set it back down and it’d be just crazy stuff. I’m not complaining, but you don’t sleep, your stomach’s twisted. At least for me. I’d like to think everybody else (in the Countdown) is that way.
“I’ve been doing this for 22 years, been doing it for a living, luckiest guy in the world, but you get so engrossed in what’s going on, especially when the Countdown starts. You just don’t want to let anybody down. So the pressure is … I can’t even tell you.”
He and the NAPA AutoCare crew enjoyed somewhat of a dream weekend when everything clicked and Capps won the title at Maple Grove Raceway near Reading, Pa., on Sunday after qualifying third and was able to regain the No. 1 spot in the Funny Car standings.
In Sunday’s opening round, he lost traction late in the run against the lower seeded Jim Campbell but recovered just enough to win with a time of 4.166 seconds to Campbell’s 4.213. In the next round, Capps made a good run and eliminated DSR teammate Tommy Johnson Jr.
In the semifinals, Capps, who qualified third, faced No. 2 Matt Hagan, another teammate, and held a slight lead when Hagan’s parachutes prematurely deployed and that sealed the win for Capps.
In the final round, he led Courtney Force from start to finish. The Maple Grove title combined with one-week points leader Robert Hight’s second-round loss to return the points lead to the NAPA Dodge.
After winning the first world championship of his hall-of-fame career after being the runner-up a record four times, he’s where he wants to have his team heading to the midpoint of the playoff.
And now focus is back on defending his championship.
“Way more (tension),” he said of working to repeat. “Last year I had to have my car chief, Dustin (Heim), remind me every round before we started the car that I’m supposed to be having fun.”
Capps intends to have as much fun this weekend at Gateway as he did Sunday at Maple Grove.
Pritchett expects this weekend’s Countdown race near St. Louis to be pivotal for championship as playoff reaches midway point
– Leah Pritchett and her Papa John’s Pizza Top Fuel dragster team won’t arrive Friday at Gateway Motorsports Park near St. Louis with their heads hanging low.
Although truly disappointed with a start to the NHRA Countdown to the Championship with losses in the first round to open the six-race playoff three weeks ago at Charlotte and a second-round loss Sunday at Maple Grove Raceway near Reading, Pa., Pritchett believes her team led by crew chief Todd Okuhara and assistant Joe Barlam have conquered a mechanical gremlin that plagued the team.
“One of our biggest successes at Maple Grove (Reading) was finding what was wrong with our race car gremlin-wise,” she said. “We feel comfortable that we have our hot rod back.”
The best run of the weekend for Pritchett at Maple Grovewas her second one in qualifying 3.741 seconds at 328.14 mph on Friday that resulted in a No. 6 qualifying position. After opening Sunday eliminations with a stout 3.760, she was paired against points leader Steve Torrence in the second round. She held a big lead off the starting line against Torrence and was leading throughout until an engine detonation slowed her to 3.825 (274) that handed the win to Torrence.
Pritchett, who has won four times in six final rounds with six No. 1 qualifying performances, will arrive at Gateway ranked seventh but only 97 points out of the lead.
“This is such a highly critical weekend. It’s coming down to the wire,” she said. “We need to qualify near the top like we have most of the year and win rounds. There’s 16 rounds of racing left that leaves and a lot of points on the table and we plan on getting most of them.”
Gateway marks the midway point of the Countdown, and Pritchett remains confident her team will help her move up in the standings.
“Back in the winner’s circle is where we want to be, and we’ll get there. We feel good about St. Louis. Even though we had an early exit Sunday our Papa John’s team’s confidence is boosted that we have what we need for the remaining four races.”
Johnson stresses importance of winning rounds in Countdown as playoff reaches midway point this weekend at Gateway near St. Louis
– After two early exits during the six-race NHRA Countdown to the Championship playoff, Tommy Johnson Jr. knows that Terry and Doug Chandler’s Make-A-Wish Funny Car team needs to win rounds in order to contend for the Funny Car world championship.
“The championship is still doable, but it’s going to take at least four finals and we need to win them to get back on track,” said Johnson, who finished last season second in points after being third the previous two years.
“The Countdown certainly hasn’t started out the way we’d wanted it to but even with that said, we’re still only 114 points out of the lead and that’s certainly attainable.”
The Make-A-Wish team has advanced to two quarterfinals during the Countdown. Johnson currently sits No. 6, behind the leader and Don Schumacher Racing teammate Ron Capps.
“Getting to final rounds are going to be important here on out. We need to find momentum that we’ve lost and go some rounds. We have to go to some finals to keep ourselves in it.
“Fortunately, nobody is running away with it and that’s keeping everybody in the race.”
The NHRA travels this week to Gateway Motorsport Park near St. Louis for the sixth annual NHRA Midwest Nationals for the third race of the six-race playoffs.
In 2016, Johnson entered the event as the No. 8 qualifier and advanced to the final round before being defeated by Jack Beckman and the Infinite Hero Foundation Dodge, also funded by the Chandlers.
Aside from gaining ground in NHRA points, Johnson would love winning at Gateway to match the win by his dad, Tommy Johnson Sr., in 1976.
“It’s one of the tracks that’s closest to Iowa and Ottumwa,” he said of hometown. “This one of the races I’d like to win one of these days so I can say I won where my dad did.”
Infinite Hero’s Beckman looks for third win near St. Louis, move Chandlers’ Dodge higher in NHRA playoff standings
– Every NHRA racer would like to win at a racetrack in consecutive years and this weekend at the sixth annual NHRA Midwest Nationals near St. Louis driver Jack Beckman can accomplish that in Terry and Doug Chandler’s Infinite Hero Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car.
“I think we have a great running car,” Beckman said. “We are within striking range of the top spot in the Countdown to the Championship. I don’t think we can take over first place at the next race but we can chip away at that lead if we execute well.”
Beckman and the team led by crew chiefs Dean Antonelli, John Medlen and Neal Strausbaugh are ranked fifth and 100 points behind Don Schumacher Racing teammate Ron Capps.
In 2016 at Gateway, the Infinite Hero team definitely executed well. Beckman defeated Dale Creasy Jr., John Force and Capps before meeting another teammate, Tommy Johnson Jr., in the final round.
It was a battle of the Chandlers’ “Giving Cars,’ as Johnson’s Dodge is also funded by the Chandlers and banners the Make-A-Wish foundation.
Johnson went up in tire smoke and Beckman got the round win and the NHRA Wally Trophy.
Beckman has won at Gateway twice (2012, 2016) and finished as the runner-up twice (2010, 2013).
The event this weekend marks the third event of the NHRA Countdown to the Championship playoff. In a little over two months, NHRA will crown the 2017 Funny Car world champion and Beckman would love nothing more than to wear that crown for the second time in his career.
“I recognize that there are a lot of things that we have no control over: the weather, the way the eliminations ladder stacks up on Sunday and what the car in the other lane does. All we can manage is our team, our attitude and our race car. If we do that to the best of our ability, no matter what the result is, we can hold our heads high.”
