Ron Capps came ready to race this weekend.

So when an issue with the wheelie bar on his 11,000-horsepower nitro-powered machine forced him to abort his first round of qualifying Friday at Brainerd International Raceway, he was far from happy.

But instead of allowing a poor start to derail the weekend before it ever began, Capps rallied the troops, sat down with crew chief Dean “Guido” Antonelli and decided this was no time to play it safe.

Instead, Capps’ call and his team’s preparations helped propel Capps from off the qualifying sheet to the provisional No. 1 qualifier at the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals.

“We had to shut the car off the first run and I sat there on the starting line and watched (Matt) Hagan go low e.t., and the conditions were pretty good,” Capps said. “Guido was going to throw down, so it is hard to say what it was going to run, but thankfully a crew guy caught what he caught because that could have been pretty dangerous.

“Guido and I had a talk (after the round) and he’s like, ‘It’s going to be hot tomorrow and I don’t want to not be in the top half. I don’t want to throw down and miss it and smoke the tires. There are 17 cars.’ So after the conversation, I just looked at him and said, ‘Dude, go for it. It’s like most races, we have three qualifying runs anyway. Approach it like it’s a Friday night at Indy in two weeks and throw down.’ He just smiled and, while he didn’t throw down as much, it turned out to be enough.”

Capps ran a stout 3.894-second pass at 330.23 mph in his NAPA Toyota Supra, holding off a hard-charging J.R. Todd who drove his DHL Supra to a 3.907 at 327.98 mph.

Hagan’s 3.910 at 328.06 mph from earlier in the day slipped to third, while Bob Tasca (3.915) and Cruz Pedregon (3.934) rounded out the top five.

While Capps has been stout in qualifying this season - with starts inside the top eight in every race but one - if his time holds on Saturday it will be only his second pole position this year and his first since the season opener in Gainesville.

Adding to the drama on Friday, a lengthy oildown pushed the second qualifying session deep into the evening hours as a fast approaching sunset cast doubt on how many runs the teams would be able to get in before darkness enveloped the track. While the second qualifying session for the Top Fuel category was canceled due to darkness, the Funny Car class was just able to get in all of their runs.

Following the nearly hour-long cleanup, Capps and opponent Dale Creasy Jr. were first to fire and get a look at the freshly prepared track.

“I wasn’t worried about our lane,” Capps said. “Obviously the oil was in the other lane, but I’ve sat there and watched the Safety Safari do their work and when you think it’s an impossible task to go down the track at any elapsed time, I’ve watched low e.t. happen. So I never worry, except that we’ve joked that a lot of times the track is better when they get done with it in the lane they cleaned.”

After a strong opening act, Capps now shifts his focus to a tricky couple of days ahead with massive fluctuations in temperatures projected. In fact, the defending world champion is even calling for records to fall by the end of the weekend thanks to those conditions.

Either way, Capps’ bold call to go for it all on Friday will help set the team up for success the rest of the weekend.

“We’ve seen this in the past, these little cold fronts that roll in here. You never discount what the weather is going to be like up here,” Capps said. “It was going to be low 90s both Saturday and Sunday, now it’s going to be a high of 76 or 75 on Sunday. And this track, it’s good when it is hot, but we will see records fall. This track has a magnificent surface, so those conditions even it out for a lot of teams. We’re going to see those low-dollar teams come out and they’re going to be able to throw down. It’s fun to strap in and know that you’re going to possibly go on your quickest run.”