Funny Car owner-driver Ron Capps was unhurt Sunday at the FMP Arizona Nationals following his fiery engine explosion toward the end of his quarterfinal victory against Daniel Wilkerson at Firebird Motorsports Park.
His NAPA Auto Care entry sashayed a bit on the suburban Phoenix racetrack before the engine detonated in a spectacular ball of flame, cracked the body, and veered into the right-side guard wall.
Capps exited the car on his own power and indicated he will try to make the semifinal round against last year’s Phoenix winner Paul Lee.
Shortly afterward he said, “Sunday, a round-win is pretty important these days. It’s tough. It’s a tough track. It’s spinning. Everybody’s spinning down there. What do you do? You don’t have time to say, ‘Oh, should I lift? Should I not lift?’
“I don’t see Daniel next to me. There’s a lot of things that go through your brain. I’ve been doing this a long time. This is not, I don’t think, worth a round-win, but if we go on to win the race, we’re going to look back at this,” Capps said. “And I don’t think I grazed … I couldn’t see out the front windshield. You’ll see the in-car camera. I couldn’t see, but I was looking at the porthole and watching Daniel. Thank God he was right next to me. And I was just kind of judging off of him.
“And then all of a sudden,” Capps said, “I felt the graze off the wall with the header. Not very hard. So I didn’t want to ruin this chassis. It’s a great chassis, but I did not want to get into Daniel first and foremost. So thank God I could see out the side. And our NAPA Auto Care guys are the best. Carlyle Tools will be flying around and all that, but we’ll have it ready.”
