What Funny Car team owner-tuner Jim Head treated as a casual staging-lanes conversation with Don Schumacher Racing’s Ron Capps Sunday morning at the CatSpot NHRA Northwest Nationals turned out to trigger a verbal wreck that gathered up other racers.

After his first-round victory on the Pacific Raceways dragstrip, Capps emerged from his NAPA Dodge and shared that he was disturbed by his conversation with Head. It took place as Capps was making final preparations for his first-round race against Jonnie Lindberg, Head’s driver.

"Jim Head, he tried to play mind games with me and came over to talk to me about something we shouldn't have talked about this morning right before I put my helmet on,” Capps said on the public-address system. “I lost a little bit of respect for Jim. I got that in my head as I was trying to stage the car. It is what it is, but you don't do that to somebody, especially when they are trying to race. I love Jonnie Lindberg - great kid, known him a long time."

Capps was quick to say, “I’ve always loved Jim Head. He’s one of the smartest guys around. I’ve always had a blast with him.” He separated the action from the person.

“I think what he did was inappropriate, to have that conversation when we’ve been here all weekend long,” Capps said. “I just so happened to be running his car and I’m getting ready to get in the car to race against them. Wrong time to be discussing something inappropriate.”

Head said after the run that he was unaware that Capps was upset.

“Really? What did he say?” Head asked. When he learned the gist of Capps’ remarks, Head said, “Wow. He took it that hard?”

Capps declined to share what the topic of their conversation was, but Head volunteered it: “John Force.”

Head said he didn’t understand why Capps found the conversation offensive: “I told him he was one of the finest race-car drivers in the history of the sport.”

But was that all he told Capps?

“No,” Head said. “I told him a few other things about John Force that I’m not going to repeat. That was it. That was all it was. I was talking about John Force’s lack of driving ability. But I started the whole conversation with ‘You’re one of the finest Funny Car drivers we got.’ If he don’t like it, he don’t like it.”

Head bristled at the idea he tried to rattle and distract Capps.

“Oh, please! To get in his head? Aw, c’mon,” Head said, annoyed. “If I was going to get in somebody’s head, I’d get into [Capps tuner] Rahn Tobler’s head – because he [Capps] is just a f------ trained monkey that hits the gas. We’ve all got trained monkeys that work for us. The best crew chief wins these races.”

If so, in this match-up, Tobler was the better crew chief. Capps advanced with a 3.989-second elapsed time over Lindberg’s 4.049.

After winning the Funny Car trophy, Capps told reporters, “I’m not going to say anything bad about Jim Head, but what he did was wrong. I’m not sure he’ll ever admit he was wrong about anything. I love the guy, and I’ve been around him a long time. But what he came and talked to me about, when he came and talked to me about it, was wrong. I’ve got a lot of respect for Jim Head. I still do. There’s no way he didn’t do that, I think, for a reason.

“It was just a bizarre conversation that didn’t need to happen. I’ve been here all weekend long, and to do it right before I’m getting in my car to race against his car was inappropriate, no matter what,” he said. “This is my livelihood. This is all I do. He’s got other stuff he does. And we talked about it. I’ve always had great conversations with him. It was wrong for that conversation to come up right when it did in the staging lanes.

“My team was upset about it – more than I was. I’m an emotional guy. I race emotionally. I compete emotionally. I always have,” Capps said. “Sometimes I misspeak when I get out of my car for interviews. I say something and I go, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.’ I would hope all of our fans – fans of mine, Couertney’s, whoever’s – respect me more for saying what’s on my mind at times rather than not and being vanilla, kind of letting things go. But I’ve always been very honest with my fans and about what goes on in our camp and behind the scenes.

“I feel like I race better when I’m mad,” Capps said. “Tobler said, ‘Let it go.’ He said, ‘Obviously they don’t understand that when you get emotional about something, I see the best lights ever. I see the best driving out of you. So if they want to get you upset, that’s fine.’

“We’ll talk about it with Jim Head later,” Capps said. “I’m not going to say a bad thing about the guy. It was just a very bizarre moment.”