Ron Capps admitted that he felt like a broken record throughout the NHRA Torco Race Fuels Nationals race weekend when talking about his championship chances with the ESPN2 crew.
 
“This is the most important round of my life,” Capps told them before he made his Saturday qualifying run.
 
Capps was unqualified and got into the field as the 15th qualifier.
 
“We needed to get in to have a shot and then I found out I had to run Robert Hight in the first round,” Capps said.
 
When teammate Gary Scelzi qualified eighth, it put him into a tie with Capps unofficially since points are only made official at the completion of an event.
 
Once again Capps said it.
 
“This is the most important round of our life – if we don’t win – our season is done,” Capps repeated.
 
Then Jack Beckman lost in the second round to Tony Bartone. The only way Capps could entertain championship thoughts was to win the semi-finals.
 
Capps was on the losing end of a tiebreaker with Scelzi, which meant all of the pressure was on him. Ron Capps admitted that he felt like a broken record throughout the NHRA Torco Race Fuels Nationals race weekend when talking about his championship chances with the ESPN2 crew.
 
“This is the most important round of my life,” Capps told them before he made his Saturday qualifying run.
 
Capps was unqualified and got into the field as the 15th qualifier.
 
“We needed to get in to have a shot and then I found out I had to run Robert Hight in the first round,” Capps said.
 
When teammate Gary Scelzi qualified eighth, it put him into a tie with Capps unofficially since points are only made official at the completion of an event.
 
Once again Capps said it.
 
“This is the most important round of our life – if we don’t win – our season is done,” Capps repeated.
 
Then Jack Beckman lost in the second round to Tony Bartone. The only way Capps could entertain championship thoughts was to win the semi-finals.
 
Capps was on the losing end of a tiebreaker with Scelzi, which meant all of the pressure was on him.
 
“As long as Gary was winning, we had to keep going rounds,” Capps said.
 
Cue the record once again.
 
“I had heard there was a chance we both could pass Jack [Beckman] in the points if we went to the final round,” Capps said. “When I pulled to the line in the semis against Tim Wilkerson, I knew this was the most important round of my life.”
 
Capps overcame a Wilkerson holeshot to post low elapsed time of the round and go to the finals.
 
“We wanted three of us in the finals and at that point I didn’t care,” Capps said. “I have been praising the countdown and even though it didn’t look like I was going to make it in, I was praising it. I got emails from fans and read articles about how bad it was that I got my points taken away.
 
“I thought it was exciting and if there was a team, and not to take anything away from anyone, I felt like we deserved a shot at it. We weren’t going to cry about the points and the structure because we knew about it going in. We made a fatal mistake of going into a test mode in Topeka. If we had kept going on at our pace, we might have had a 200-something point lead and maybe won a few races. But, that was part of the countdown and that’s why we did it. We won’t do it again.
 
“I wanted [crew chief] Ed McCulloch to have a shot at it in Pomona. I wanted to be one of those four cars. It’s so justified that we got in. You wanted excitement and you got it.”