This year has been one of amazing achievements for Ron Capps.
In his second reign over the Funny Car class, he debuted as a team owner, advanced to the finals in the season-opener, won two races, forged an alliance with Toyota to drive one of its brand-new Supra entries, as the so-called regular season rushes to a close, the defending series champion sits third in points.
And this weekend, the 57-year-old from Carlsbad, Calif., will reach another notable milestone. He’ll compete in his 600th race.
“I don’t even know how to react to 600 races. That’s like John Force numbers. That’s like Doug Kalitta, John Force, Dale Creasy kind of stuff, Capps said. “It blows my mind that I’ve been lucky enough to do this for that long. I’ve been blessed to be around super-good people that worked on really good race cars that made me look way better than I am, trust me.
“The fact that I’ve done that many races, every time we hit a plateau of so many wins, it blows my mind. So many races blows my mind. It’s numbers I never in a million years thought I would ever achieve,” he said. “And I was just happy with one race and one Wally [trophy], let alone what we’re going to see now. So 600 is a pretty big number. That’s old-guy stuff. So, I don’t know if I should start feeling like I’m that old or not, but I still can’t fathom 600 races. It’s a huge compliment that somebody even keeps track of that, but to represent our sport in that many races is, man, I still can’t believe it.”
Along the way, Capps has earned two championships in the past six seasons (2016, 2021) and written his name in the NHRA record books for success beyond the Funny Car category.
With 69 Funny Car victories, he’s second on the class’ all-time list only to 155-time winner John Force. He has one Top Fuel victory, for a career total of 70.
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