Three-time NHRA Funny Car champion: 'We did something pretty cool.'
Probably the best advice, if I was giving myself advice a year ago when I was getting ready to become an NHRA team owner/driver, would be to make sure not to forget that you’re only as good as the race car and the people around you.
In other words, John Force wouldn’t be John Force if he didn’t have crew chief Austin Coil all those years. No, he wouldn’t be just another Funny Car driver, but he certainly wouldn’t have 155 wins or be a 16-time NHRA champion. Especially in drag racing.
You can take a Mario Andretti and put him in a 10th-place car and there were times in his career that he would take that 10th-place car and finish top five, if not a win. Same thing with Dale Earnhardt Sr. I mean just looking back, there are only a few people who could do that. In drag racing, though, the car is set up to be what it is.
Ron Capps is the first back-to-back NHRA Funny Car champion in 20 years.
NHRA/National Dragster
And we as drivers in nitro cars, we can’t make that car go any better than what it’s set up. It’s set up to go right down the middle of the groove as straight as possible. And if it’s set up right, it’s gonna run great. We can’t push any harder, pedal, we can’t do anything that’s going to make it go better, but we can certainly make that car run worse by not keeping it straight, moving around, not leaving on time, not doing the same thing in the car every time, things like that.
So I learned a long time ago, you’re only as good as your car. And so a year ago, when we were getting ready to form a team, I would have told myself to do exactly what I did—to find the right people and especially the right race car.
I was lucky to have crew chiefs Guido Antonelli and John Medlen because they do so much more besides just tune a race car. And having great people around, obviously to help run the business part, has been awesome. But absolutely, as far as NHRA drag racing, you’ve got to have a great crew and a great crew chief. That is first and foremost.
I went to work for Don “Snake” Prudhomme all those years ago as a paid driver, and I’ve had some pretty legendary hero crew chiefs, some of the best of the best racers—Roland Leong, Ed “Ace” McCulloch, Rahn Tobler—and you go right down the list. I’ve loved that old-school mentality that these racers I’ve worked with have, and that includes Don Schumacher.
I think the best success that we had this year was when I showed up in the pit area the same way as I have the last 28, 29 years. The best success was when I would walk into the pit with my backpack, talk to the guys when I walk in, and I go and I sit down with a crew chief and talk about what the plan is and what we’re doing.
And the fact that I grew up working on these cars before I drove, mechanically we can talk driver to crew chief, and I can expect what they’re going to do—and know in the car what they’re going to do. My goal every morning that I walk into that pit area is to be the best driver for that crew chief—and for the owner of course. But my immediate goal is to be the best for the crew chief.
I don’t really think about the owner part, honestly.
In the past, if I’ve made mistakes, I’m apologetic to my crew chiefs and my crew members, and then later on if I needed to apologize to the owner, I certainly would have done so. I did the same thing this year, and almost forgot I was a team owner. Those weekends where I forgot I was the team owner were the best weekends we had, including the Finals at Pomona. I didn’t even think of myself as the team owner as all the hoopla was going on, as all the business side of things were going on from Monday to Thursday that week.
So that’s another thing I would tell somebody.
Some things did change within his team this year. I mean, we had the rock-n-roll music playing in the pits. Guys were loose, just having a good time, and I like it that way. I don’t want people to have to be miserable going to such a great job.
I’ve been around multi-car teams my whole career, so when I went to Don Prudhomme’s team, I had Larry Dixon as a teammate. Then later on, it was Tommy Johnson and Larry Dixon. Of course, when I went to Schumacher’s, it was upwards of eight cars at one time—four funny cars and four dragsters. I’ve been around multi-car teams my whole career, and there are certainly negatives about it. Certainly, a lot of things can go wrong with multi-car teams.
2023 NHRA champions Erica Enders, Brittany Force, Matt Smith and Ron Capps celebrate on the victory stand at Pomona.
NHRA/National Dragster
When It’s done right, it’s fantastic. But again, it’s about the people—that sounds cliche’. That’s one of the major reasons that I stayed running DSR parts this year and I kept our hospitality with the same champions tent next to the pit area at the track. And we stayed next to the people at DSR that I had been around for 17 years.
My path was specifically making sure I had the right people first, and then having Toyota jump on board during the season. And all the little things came together. We were methodical about it.
So there’s a culture for sure, but it’s not necessarily the DSR or the Don Prudhomme Racing team culture. It’s the people that are around it. I felt that was huge. One of the first things I did personally was bring on board my publicist, social media person and photographer that were part of our team at DSR. It goes back to the same thing—It’s about the people.
The negative people—the people that are going to interrupt the good flow on a multi-car team—they’ve got to be weeded out. Sometimes that weeding out doesn’t happen, and you watch it deteriorate a great multi-car team.
I’ve seen it both sides. I’ve seen the greatest, and I’ve seen the not so great.
What Don Schumacher built, I’m very proud to be a part of all those banners hanging. It wasn’t specifically my name on all those banners, but I feel like I brought a lot to the table to help that corporation win a lot of races, whether or not that that Wally or that banner had my name on it as a driver. I feel like I helped a lot.
People ask if I’m still celebrating our championship. I’m trying, but I’m already stressing out trying to get stuff going for next year. I’m trying to process all this. It’s crazy because I don’t think it fully hit me until I was doing all the media in the days after Pomona. It reminds me of what we did. It slowly hit me a little bit at a time.
But at the same time, like this morning, I was on the phone with Guido and we’re going over stuff that’s going to happen next year and about us trying to buy certain things here and there. And just then, it just reminded me what I was going through at the beginning of this year and the end of December last year when we were putting this all together.
It was like, ‘Oh my God, I’m having a little bit of this upset stomach and not sleeping at night and waking up in the middle of night all over again.’ You would think I wouldn’t have any of that this week, the week right after winning the championship and what we did, but I understand it now. I understand what these other drivers have talked about, and what team owners like John Force and (Connie) Kalitta, and all these guys have gone through.
Now I understand … no rest for the wicked.
I’m excited for what we did, but I don’t feel like we’ve really enjoyed it yet. So the holidays are going to help, and that’s going to be probably the best time for my wife and I and all of us to enjoy it.
Then there’s all the great messages and texts I’ve received. A couple days ago, Jeremy McGrath, who I’ve looked up to and has been a friend and is one of the all-time greats, sent me a message. I heard from Mr. (Rick) Hendrick and Jeff Gordon. Don Prudhomme was in my ear every day checking in on me.
When I look down at my phone I see a message from Jimmie Johnson, that’s pretty neat. We’ve known each other forever, and to watch what he’s done and now what he’s doing, going back to NASCAR, has been really great.
To get that those kinds of messages for me really made me sit down and just stare at my phone for a minute and realize … yeah, we we did something pretty cool.
Keyword: Ron Capps: My Advice to Anyone Thinking of Forming Their Own NHRA Team