NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series

RON CAPPS
Skoal Racing
Green Chevy Camaro

"I knew I had the will to go faster and faster with whatever I drove."

Questions and story by Dwight Drum
Photos by Gary Larsen
Web work by Gary Larsen

Ron Capps is a package of talent. His compact size is right for a race car driver while his heart, his drive seems oversized…also right for a race car driver. Add to that power package Capps' photogenic face and a history of rising through the racing ranks and you might see why legendary Don Prudhomme, The Snake, hired him quick to be fast.

Capps' skills also transfer from the straight track at NHRA to the oval tracks at IROC in NASCAR racing venues. That's a big leap for any guy whose body frame is compact, medium or huge, but you don't have to leap as far to know more about this NHRA POWERade Skoal Racing feature racer. Just let your eyes jump word for word and you'll get to know more about the drive that keeps this steady competitor on the move.

"Probably, my family."

"Wanted to be one or could be one? I always knew I could be one growing up racing go-carts. At that point, I knew I had the will to go faster and faster with whatever I drove. You hope things happen that you can do it professionally, but you still never know what's going to happen. At that point I knew I could."

"I don't know but I've said this before, it takes a special person to do what we do. All these guys are so talented out here and any race car driver for that matter. There's no doubt it takes the right person and you have to have that certain fire inside. You can't be a laid back person. At the same time, I've worked really hard on my hand and eye coordination and other things I maybe didn't have. I had to work extra hard to achieve all of that. I think it takes a lot of determination more than anything else."

"Sometimes you start to become the car. Some other drivers are the same way. They really know what changes were made to the car. I do a lot of talking with Ed McCulloch my crew chief so I know what changes they made. We strategize before each run. Then I can expect maybe a little more clutch to happen or the car to lift the front end a little. The timing could be retarded or fast in a certain spot, but I'm ready for it. There's more than just driving. So much goes into it. I love everything about the getting ready for a run or a competition and just everything that goes into it. It's amazing what goes on mentally besides physically to go down a race track a quarter mile."

"My dad more than anything else, he's always been that way. He hates to lose at anything. Growing up during Holidays whether we played checkers or chess, my dad instilled in me that it's tough to lose. I've always had the fear of losing, no matter what it was. We'd go bowling or something I'm not even good at and I would lose to someone that's good at it. It still irritates me."

"I'm not always that personality that gets out of the car at the other end that they want to put a microphone on. I see people at a concert or dinner somewhere, and their shocked to run into me. I think a lot of them expect a different response. They say, "Wow, you're a lot shorter in person then you look on TV." The normal response, I think a lot of people are taken back. They expect me to come flying out like Force or something, because he's like that all the time and I'm not most of the time."

Yeah, it's funny. At times I've just sat back and said is this really happening to me? The first shot I got at driving for John Mitchell. I was a crew member on another dragster. I knew I wanted to drive and I heard he always hired the best. Tony Pedregon and Larry Dixon drove for him. All of these guys. It was a dream and then the next thing I knew I was driving his car. Then I had Roger Primm ask me to drive his Top Fuel car within the next year. A year and a half after that Don Prudhomme calls my house and says he's putting a Funny car together and asked me if I'd like drive. It literally happened that fast. You might think it's overnight success, but I worked my way up as a crew member, wanting to drive and trying to learn as much as I could to get my face out there. There were times when you start to get down and think maybe I'm not going to do this for a living and then BAM! Things like that happen. Talk about sunlight on a foggy day... there's nothing like getting a phone call from Don Prudhomme, a guy you idolized. I thought it was a prank call when he called and said…"Hey Kid, I'm putting a team together would you like to drive?" That's a ray of sunshine!"

"Yeah, and you can tell it out here. Maybe some can't, but I think most people can. I sure can. I can tell by watching some of these guys. They have instincts. I like to think I have some of that. A lot of people think you can come out here push the pedal down and go a quarter mile and the more guts you have the braver you are the more successful you'll be. That's not true. The guys who know when to get off of the throttle are the guys that are good. John Force is great. Dixon's the best. It's the guys who know when to get off and when to say when and when not to get in over their heads. That's what I learned very early in my career, when to say when. That really separates the guys that go out there smoking tires with the throttle wide open, crossing the line, taking out the cones, oiling the track. There's nothing worse then doing that. The veterans stand on the line saying, "Man what an idiot." That's really the difference between a great driver and a good driver."

"I spoke with Dick Trickle yesterday. I got a call from the IROC guys after I ran the Chili Bowl. I raced the Champions day at the Chili Bowl in Tulsa Oklahoma in January. I got a call from IROC guys to come test at Talladega. That was another one of those rays of sunshine on a foggy day. That was like a dream. It was great to have Andy Hillenburg, Dave Marcus, Dick Trickle, Mr. Sauter and all the IROC testers take me under their wing. I was out there two days at 180 mph drafting and bump drafting two inches away from Kinser and all the great IROC guys. I'm going to test with them again in Chicago two times this summer. Who knows what will happen, but I know it's been a dream."

I interviewed Andy Hillenburg prior to this season and we became instant Andy fans.

"Oh yeah. He's a great guy. I went to his Fast Track school a few years ago in Atlanta. I drove stock cars there about four years ago. That was cool. I knew him when we first started with US Tobacco. My teammate was Harry Gant, but after that Kenny Schrader drove a Skoal banner car. Andy was the spotter for the Skoal Racing car at Winston Cup races for Kenny Schrader and did a lot of test driving when Kenny couldn't make it. That's how I got to know Andy. He's been unbelievable."