{"id":43507,"date":"2020-09-28T05:00:01","date_gmt":"2020-09-28T09:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dodgegarage.com\/news-api\/?p=43507"},"modified":"2024-03-25T11:22:16","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T15:22:16","slug":"capps-drives-dodge-charger-srt-hellcat-to-nhra-gatornationals-win-for-tenth-consecutive-don-schumacher-racing-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/racing\/2020\/09\/capps-drives-dodge-charger-srt-hellcat-to-nhra-gatornationals-win-for-tenth-consecutive-don-schumacher-racing-victory.html","title":{"rendered":"Capps Drives Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat to NHRA Gatornationals Win for Tenth Consecutive Don Schumacher Racing Victory"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It was a Hell(cat) of a ride for Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) driver Ron Capps on his drive to the winner\u2019s circle at the 51st annual Amalie Motor Oil National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Gatornationals at historic Gainesville Raceway. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Capps\u2019 fourth\ncareer Gatornationals event victory extended DSR\u2019s Funny Car consecutive win\nstreak to ten national events since October 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From his No. 4 position on the eliminations ladder, Capps sped past competitors Jim Campbell and Alexis DeJoria and into a hotly contested semifinal match against No. 1 qualifier and DSR teammate Matt Hagan; quite literally as Capps\u2019 Dodge Charger SRT\u00ae<\/sup> Hellcat Funny Car crossed the finish line in flames while still posting the lowest elapsed time run and top speed of the weekend. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“We blew up\nright when I stepped off the gas in the semifinals,\u201d said Capps who emerged\nunscathed after turning on the win light and employing a \u201chockey stop\u201d maneuver\nto slow his car after a 3.898-second pass at 329.99 mph to defeat Hagan\u2019s\n4.016\/312.64. \u201cIt exploded down there but thanks to the changes made by the Don\nSchumacher Racing fab (fabrication) shop, this body stayed on, rather than\nlaunch up in the air. I felt very safe after it blew up and everything stayed\ntogether on the car.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With limited\ntime to return to the staging lanes, Capps\u2019s Crew Chief Rahn Tobler opted to\nunload a back-up Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat for the final round showdown against\nNo. 2 qualifier Tim Wilkerson. Capps powered to a 3.937 sec.\/323.12-mph lap to\ndefeat his opponents 3.945\/325.92 and bring home his second Wally trophy of the\nseason and 66th of his career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“We all\nknew it was (Crew Chief Rahn) Tobler’s birthday and we all secretly wanted to\nwin on his birthday, but to bring out a car that we had as a backup, that’s\nnever made it to the finish line and it goes 3.93 in the final round of the\nGatornationals is crazy,\u201d said Capps. \u201cHe’s had that car up in the trailer\nsince last year when we ran it at ‘Night Under Fire’ at Norwalk (Ohio) and made\na check-out run with it and he put it away for these occasions. With live TV\npushing us, we had every team member of Don Schumacher Racing over here working\non the car. It was unbelievable. Team members you’re battling against in the\nchampionship are over here helping our guys and it was cool.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Those efforts\nresulted in moving Capps up one position into fourth place in the Funny Car\nchampionship standings and into a four-way fight amongst the DSR teammates atop\nthe leaderboard with just four national events left on the 2020 calendar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leading the\ncharge towards the Funny Car championship with 569 points is Jack Beckman and\nhis Infinite Hero Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat based on two wins and two runner-up\nfinishes, and who, despite a quarterfinal loss to top qualifier Hagan, remains\nfour markers ahead of him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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2020 NHRA, Gatornationals<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For his part, Hagan drove the Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Redeye out of the gates for the opening round bye-run just as the \u201cdemon-possessed\u201d namesake implies, posting a 3.915-second run at 327.90 mph to immediate set the low elapsed-time (e.t.) and top speed standard to beat. With the win over Beckman and the loss to Capps, Hagan remains firmly in second place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sitting third in\nthe points coming into the weekend, Tommy Johnson Jr. took his MD Anderson\nDodge Charger SRT Hellcat for a drive to a first round win against J.R. Todd\nwhich was followed by a quarterfinal loss to Wilkerson. He does maintain his\nposition in the standings with 512 points ahead of Capps who rounds out the\ntop-four with 486 points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While DSR Top Fuel driver Leah Pruett wasn\u2019t able to score her first Gatornats win, she did drive her red, black and chrome Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Redeye dragster to her fourth straight semifinal appearance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"top<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Pruett pedaled\nher way to an opening round victory against Joe Morrison to face No. 1\nqualifier Clay Millican against whom she earned an exciting holeshot win as\nthey ran identical elapsed time passes of 3.788 seconds. That set up a\nsemifinal battle with Steve Torrence whom she had a slight second-place lead\nover in the Top Fuel championship standings coming into race day. Pruett drove\nher Mopar\u00ae<\/sub> dragster to a solid 3.812-second pass, but saw her day cut short by\nTorrence\u2019s 3.772 effort. Torrence went on to win the Wally and move into the\npoints lead ahead of Doug Kalitta with Pruett still in the hunt sitting in\nthird place in the Top Fuel standings just 33 points behind the leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In NHRA Factory Stock Showdown (FSS) qualifying, the Mopar Drag Pak duo of Mark Pawuk and Leah Pruett drove into eliminations seeded tenth and 12th respectively. Coming into Gainesville second in points behind Aaron Stanfield, Pawuk followed up his U.S. Nationals runner-up performance with a solid 8.091 at 169.83-mph run in his Empaco Equipment Mopar Drag Pak to defeat David Kramer\u2019s 8.192 in the opening round. While Pawuk had a lightning quick start with a 0.002-second reaction time against the No. 2 qualifier, Stephen Bell, he wasn\u2019t able to hold him off and fell short with a respectable 8.065\/170.58 pass to the winner\u2019s 7.987\/171.18 run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From her 12th<\/sup>\nposition on the eliminations ladder, Pruett and her Mopar Dodge Challenger Drag\nPak lined up next to no. 5 qualifier Arthur Kohn. Despite her best efforts,\nKohn took the early lead and ended Pruett\u2019s day prematurely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The DSR Mopar\nDodge\/\/SRT teams and drivers will have a short time to get ready for next\nweekend\u2019s Mopar Express Lane NHRA Midwest Nationals at World Wide Technology\nMotorsports Park near St. Louis, Missouri. Two NHRA nitro qualifying sessions\nare scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 3, at 1:30 and 5:00 p.m. ET, with highlights\nto be aired on FS1 later that night from 10-11 p.m. ET and also on Sunday, Oct.\n4, from 1:30-2:30 p.m. ET. \n\nElimination rounds at the\nMopar Express Lane Midwest Nationals Presented by Pennzoil are scheduled to\nbegin at 11 a.m. ET on Sunday, Oct. 4, with the television broadcast on FS1\nbeginning at 2:30 p.m. ET featuring LIVE coverage of the final round.\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was a Hell(cat) of a ride for Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) driver Ron Capps on his drive to the winner\u2019s circle at the 51st annual Amalie Motor Oil National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Gatornationals at historic Gainesville Raceway. Capps\u2019 fourth career Gatornationals event victory extended DSR\u2019s Funny Car consecutive win streak to ten national events since October 2019. From his No. 4 position on the eliminations ladder, Capps sped past competitors Jim Campbell and Alexis DeJoria and into a hotly contested semifinal match against No. 1 qualifier and DSR […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":43511,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[575],"tags":[528,849,615],"class_list":["post-43507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-racing","tag-drag-racing","tag-dsr","tag-nhra"],"acf":[],"custom_fields":{"post_thumbnail_image":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/cappsgatornationalsfeature.jpg","icon_selection":"article","external_link":"","featured_article":[],"upload_background_image":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43507"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43507"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59058,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43507\/revisions\/59058"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}