Ron Capps kept hearing the name blaring through the speakers at Heartland Park Topeka: the driver he wouldn’t be able to avoid on elimination day at the NHRA Summer Nationals.
“Every time somebody would run,” Capps said Sunday afternoon, “there was Ashley Force, better than everybody.”
It wasn’t the first time Capps and Ashley Force Hood had raced in a funny-car event on a Sunday, but this time Capps was feeling the heat. Hood had the fast car and the hot hand, and circumstances kept pointing toward the 26-year-old daughter of legend John Force cruising at 280 mph toward her second career victory.
Force Hood is the fan favorite, and the drag-racing wunderkind seems to be at the front edge of continuing the family’s tradition of steady wins and unmatched popularity.
Forgive Capps if he was intimidated entering Sunday’s final against Force Hood. Praise him for beating Force Hood despite it all.
“We were going to make a lot of fans upset in the final round if we beat her,” said Capps, who passed the finish line nearly three-tenths of a second before Force Hood. Kansas City
Allen Johnson picked up his first win in almost two years when he defeated Mike Edwards in the Pro Stock final at the O’Reilly NHRA Summer Nationals presented by Castrol GTX at Heartland Park Topeka. Larry Dixon (Top Fuel) and Ron Capps (Funny Car) were also victorious.
Johnson last put his Mopar Hemi Dodge in a winner’s circle at the Denver event in 2007. Dixon and Capps, who are tuned by the father-son crew chief duo of Jason and Ed McCulloch, have already claimed wins in 2009; Dixon’s Alan Johnson Al-Anabi Racing team also won in Gainesville, and Capps’ NAPA-backed Dodge was also the top Funny Car in Pomona, Phoenix, and Las Vegas.
One race after a tough holeshot loss on a run that set low e.t. of the weekend in Bristol, Dixon rebounded nicely in Topeka with solid driving and the quickest car of eliminations as he notched his 45th career victory. Racing in his 85th final, Dixon powered to a 3.971, his third straight three-second pass, to defeat Clay Millican and win his second of the year. The win moved him up two spots in the standings, from sixth to fourth.
“I’ve had worse weekends [than Bristol], but it wouldn’t be a surprise to anyone to say that I’m not where I want to be driving the car, and I think it peaked out last week,” said Dixon. “Alan [Johnson, team owner] took his crew chief hat off and put his coach hat on and worked on me and getting me right. We went and ran the car at Atlanta on Monday and Tuesday after Bristol and just made a whole bunch of runs. That was just nice, hitting the throttle and getting runs. They learned a lot from that test, and I learned a lot from that test. I was very excited and there wasn’t anything apprehensive about coming to this event. I just wanted to come here and get the gloves on and get in the game.
“The car’s been great all year. They tried some things yesterday that the car certainly didn’t like or the track didn’t like, so they readjusted for it, and it made four good runs down the racetrack. You go up there, and if someone’s going to fire a shot, let ‘em, but we’re going to go down the track as quickly as we think we can.” NHRA
| 
|