Four races into the season Funny Car racer Ron Capps has become the poster child for the term “feast or famine”. Two races in a row Capps has lost in the opening round after winning the first two events of 2009.

Capps clung to the point leader, 29 points ahead of Del Worsham. Bob Tasca dropped to fourth in points after also exiting in the first round.

"It was surprising," said Capps of the loss to eventual winner Ashley Force Hood, "because when it comes to race day, no matter where we qualify, Ace (crew chief Ed McCulloch) and the NAPA crew always have a solid car. And listening to the Top Fuel runs before us we knew that both lanes were getting pretty tricky. Four races into the season Funny Car racer Ron Capps has become the poster child for the term “feast or famine”. Two races in a row Capps has lost in the opening round after winning the first two events of 2009.

Capps clung to the point leader, 29 points ahead of Del Worsham. Bob Tasca dropped to fourth in points after also exiting in the first round.

"It was surprising," said Capps of the loss to eventual winner Ashley Force Hood, "because when it comes to race day, no matter where we qualify, Ace (crew chief Ed McCulloch) and the NAPA crew always have a solid car. And listening to the Top Fuel runs before us we knew that both lanes were getting pretty tricky.
 
"Once again we were at a track where we were fighting the conditions like the small bumps that they had out there. Cars in both lanes were having trouble.

"The NAPA Dodge was actually running pretty good, and when the tires pulled loose, I looked over at the other lane and she was in trouble. I was trying to get mine going and it wasn't straight enough to get back on the gas and hers obviously was and she got back on the gas and ran it down to the finish line. I just couldn't catch her.”

Capps confirmed the 45-minute delay in starting the first round of Funny Car eliminations due to Urs Erbacher’s massive engine explosion provided the opportunity for conditions to change just enough to require a change in the tune up. 

"With the delay in Top Fuel I saw all the crew chiefs running back to their trailers and getting back on the computers to figure out their tune-ups, because the conditions definitely changed a lot. There were a lot of crew members in a frenzy in the staging lanes changing stuff on almost every car.

"The driver gets all the credit when things are good, but you have to really tip your hats to these crew chiefs and crew members because it's conditions like these that will drive them batty."