- NAPA Toyota team owner Ron Capps is the first drag racer to make SRX grid.
- The three-time Funny Car champion has circle-track experience.
- August 10 race at Eldora Speedway is on the eve of the next NHRA event.
Ron Capps has ridden out several fiery engine explosions at Brainerd (Minnesota), Dallas, Pomona (California), and Sonoma (Calif.). He has hung upside down at Indianapolis, trapped inside his Funny Car with its extruding body latches tangled in the catch fence at the end of the dragstrip. He even joked “I think I pooped my pants” following a near-collision on race day at Norwalk, Ohio.
Just strapping into an 11,000-horsepower, nitromethane-gulping monster of a race car—and being able to tame it for three championships and 74 victories (sixth-best in the 70-year history of the sport in any pro class)—is reason enough to fear nothing.
Still, the NHRA team owner of the NAPA Toyota Supra said he’s a bit apprehensive about his August 10 return to Eldora Speedway.
At the midpoint of the Camping World SRX (Superstar Racing Experience) Series’ third season, Capps will become the first drag racer to compete with headliners from various other motorsports series (unless we count SRX co-owner and co-founder Tony Stewart, who already has a trophy in the NHRA’s Top Alcohol Dragster class).
Capps has raced on the iconic half-mile clay oval at Rossburg, Ohio, before, in a similar invitational “Prelude To The Dream” all-star-style show. He has tested in an IROC car and an SCRA sprint car, and he has raced in the prestigious Chili Bowl Midget Nationals at Tulsa. Still, he said, “I’m nervous. As the days get closer, I’m more and more nervous.
“We’re going to race at Eldora, where I raced dirt cars before with Tony Stewart—although a lot different. I’m going to approach it like I did at Eldora, driving the Prelude, and that was to try to bring somebody else’s equipment back the best I possibly can,” he said. “I’m surely going to try to win. You’ve got to remember we’re up against the best race-car drivers in the world in all different categories.”
Capps confessed that he was a bit intimidated when he tested earlier this year at a small racetrack in North Carolina.
“I went and tested with SRX right after the announcement [that he would be added to the mix], and I went to a little track in North Carolina. I showed up. And there were [NASCAR Cup Series stars] Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick, Brad Keselowski, Kasey Kahne, and Clint Bowyer,” Capps said. “And here I am, first-time ever, being strapped into one of those cars, let alone going out in front of all these guys who are classic—I mean, you could say they’re six of the best stock-car drivers in the world.”
“So it was very intimidating. And I was very much not comfortable in the car. It’s just so different from what we normally do,” he said. “We don’t get a lot of practice. That’s the only time I’ve been in the car. I haven’t even had a chance to go to Eldora or anything in the last five or six years.”
Hallie Deegan prior to practice during an SRX event last year.
The three completed SRX races have seen NASCAR Cup Series racers (Denny Hamlin, Ryan Newman, and Kyle Busch) take the checkered flag. And racing NASCAR veterans has Capps concerned. He’ll be competing Aug. 10 against Hailie Deegan, Brad Keselowski, Bobby Labonte, and Ryan Newman.
To add to his trepidation, he also will be up against Indianapolis 500 winners Tony Kanaan and Ryan Hunter-Reay, as well as IndyCar’s Marco Andretti. He’ll have Stewart—who has excelled in IndyCar, NASCAR, sprints, midgets, and now drag racing—on track, too.
Ron Capps.
Jitters aside, Capps said, “It’s an incredible opportunity for any race-car driver. People forget there’s a lot of really good race-car drivers—I’m not talking about myself here… I’m talking about Doug Kalitta [the 1994 USAC Midget rookie of the year and the 1994 USAC Sprint car champion]… J.R. Todd can turn left. There’s a lot of good drivers out here that do pretty well and can do well. So it was definitely a shock to be invited, very cool.”
Capps said the SRX Series, sponsored by the same company that sponsors the NHRA pro series, “is pretty much what the IROC Series was and is. It’s generated so much attention this year, going to Thursday Night Thunder, like we all used to watch when we were younger.” So he’s as excited and prepared, really, as he is uneasy.
However, Capps did say, “I’ve got a lot of things stacked against me.” He said racers from other circle-track series don’t welcome drag racers all that enthusiastically.
“Every time I’ve gone to race other series and other kinds of cars, normally, the other race-car drivers don’t take too kindly to a drag racer passing ’em,” Capps said.” And I usually get punished. They don’t like a drag racer going around ’em. And they usually get a little upset about it and try to spin you out or something. So we’re going to see how we can hold up without getting taken out and see if we can make NHRA Nation proud on that Thursday night.”
The race will be broadcast live on ESPN from 9-11 p.m. (ET) Aug. 10, the night before the NHRA reconvenes at Topeka for the Menards Nationals.
Contributing Editor
Susan Wade has lived in the Seattle area for 40 years, but motorsports is in the Indianapolis native’s DNA. She has emerged as one of the leading drag-racing writers with nearly 30 seasons at the racetrack, focusing on the human-interest angle. She was the first non-NASCAR recipient of the prestigious Russ Catlin Award and has covered the sport for the Chicago Tribune, Newark Star-Ledger, and Seattle Times. She has contributed to Autoweek as a freelance writer since 2016.
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