Capps Repeats At Gatornationals
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Gainesville, Fla.
Mar 19, 2007
As for facing Burkart in the final, who was driving a car with limited sponsorship and whose car Capps’ brother Jon was testing here on Monday, Capps said, “I was thinking, if they beat us and I have to stand around and test all day and watch him testing that car, it was going to be a long night.
“This ranks up there with Indy (U. S. Nationals). I haven’t won Indy yet, and last year I told you this was as big as it could ever get for me. And until we get an Indy win this will remain the biggest in my career, for sure. And to do it twice, I still can’t believe it.
“A lot of cars were hitting the wall, a lot of Force’s cars and those are good cars. And they were having a hard time getting down these lanes. My job was made so easy by Ace and all the Brut Revolution crew guys. This Brut Revolution Dodge was a dream to drive. It’s one of those days where you almost let go of the wheel at times.
“And you watch the other guys all over the place and you’re sitting there and in your head you’re thinking, What am I going to do if it does this or that? Am I going to grab the brake?
“Final round I actually looked up at Ace and I thought to myself when they dropped the body, This is fun. I need to enjoy this and quit being so stressed about it, and it was just go up there, stage the car. In our sport the things are so quick and it’s over, you don’t enjoy what happened until afterward and you’re coasting down with the ‘chutes out, and it hits you.
“We hauled the mail every run. This is a great job. “
Said McCulloch: “Well, it’s always good to win. It’s like we talked about early in the season, (about) the new points system. What do you do that’s different? What my approach is, you don’t do anything different. You go to every race and you try to win every race. And if that comes you’ll be there. If that doesn’t happen, you’re out of here. Did the points structure change anything for us or our intentions? The only thing that we tried to do and we worked hard at it last year and over the winter is our qualifying position. We probably lost the championship two years ago just because we didn’t qualify good enough during the year. We worked hard on it, and the last three races we qualified third, fourth, third, and it helps. It will be OK.
“Any time you win, I don’t care if you’re a driver or a crew chief or what have you - obviously the drivers do a hell of a job; they have to come in here and meet with all of you guys (media) and put up with all of this - but we win as a team and that’s our whole approach. We win as a team and we lose as a team. Ron said earlier (about) what happened at Phoenix. When it was over, it was over, that’s water behind us. We’re off, we’re running, everything will be fine. We’re good to go. “
Capps jumps into second in the Funny Car point standings and is just six points behind leader Robert Hight.
Next up is the O’Reilly NHRA Spring Nationals in Houston, Texas, March 30-April 1.
Funny Car Point Standings
1. Robert Hight, 253
2. Ron Capps, 247
3. Tony Pedregon, 243
4. Gary Scelzi, 191
5. Eric Medlen, 159
6. Jim Head, 155
7. Jeff Arend, 138
8. Ashley Force, 116
9. Mike Ashley, 116
10. Bob Gilbertson, 115
