Ron Capps and his world championship NAPA AUTO PARTS Funny Car earned a milestone 50th career NHRA national event Funny Car class title following the conclusion of racing for NHRA’s Spring Nationals held at Royal Purple Raceway – near Houston.

At NHRA Houston Ron Capps won for the 50th time in a fuel FC!

Capps and his NAPA AutoCare Centers crew dominated the last part of the 2016 season to win his first championship but their Dodge last visited a winner’s circle in last August at Seattle before their dominant and consistent weekend Houston where they qualified second.

“These things become so hard to win nowadays,” said Capps. “It’s not like it was a decade ago, but, my gosh, you almost start taking things for granted after last year when we won five Wally trophies.

“It takes a lot of pressure off but the NHRA Mellow Yello Funny Car division has to be the most competitive thing in the world right now in motorsports. It’s cutthroat. It’s big to get a win.”

Capps’ win was rather dramatic as his engine was on fire when he crossed the finish line in the final round while racing opponent Robert Hight. Ron was unaware that Hight had been disqualified for the crossing the center line moments earlier.

“We knew we were up against a tough car, and we were a little off going into that round,” Capps said. “I knew Tobler had tuned it up a little bit.

“I got out there and it started spinning the tires a little bit. And these things have so much fuel going in, you know they are literally going to be a bomb when they get that much fuel and start spinning the tires.

“You’ve got to make a decision and you don’t have time to put your hand on your chin and go, ‘should I or shouldn’t I?’ But I just stayed in the throttle and it exploded and exploded big. The downside was I couldn’t see the win light because of the fire so I wasn’t sure who won. I think it’s the wildest win I’ve ever had.”

Capps pushed past Todd Simpson, 16-time world champion John Force and teammate Jack Beckman before facing Hight in the finals. Hight defeated Jim Campbell, J.R. Todd and fellow John Force Racing teammate Courtney Force before falling to Capps.

Courtney Force qualified #1 with a track record 3.851 secs

Event Essentials:   NHRA Spring Nationals (April 21-23rd 2017) 

Runner-up Robert Hight set top speed of for FC at 331.77 mph

Posted with files by Jeff Wolf and Bruce Biegler

All photos by Randy Anderson