Now, that's how you honor a legend.

On the 50th anniversary of Don “The Snake” Prudhomme’s maiden victory at the U.S. Nationals, Ron Capps paid the perfect tribute to the all-time great with a win of his own Monday at the Dodge Power Brokers NHRA U.S. Nationals in a throwback livery honoring his former boss.

Capps, who now drives for his own team, raced for Prudhomme’s Snake Racing team from 1997-2004, winning 13 races together in Funny Car. To honor their achievements, Capps worked with longtime sponsor NAPA to set aside their traditional predominantly blue design for a bright yellow Hot Wheels scheme that Capps used as motivation to collect back-to-back wins at the biggest drag race in the land at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park.

“It’s coming full circle,” an elated Capps said. “You can’t dream this big. We did it to have some fun, to do something cool for Indy. When I was going to go off and do my own thing as a team owner, (Prudhomme) was probably the third person I called, besides my mom and my dad. Since then I’ve been wanting to do a real throwback. Thankfully, the people that make the decisions at NAPA Auto Parts understood the legacy, and understood how cool this thing was, and they stepped off the car and made sure that we did it the right way.”

Behind the wheel of a near-replica of the classic 1970s machine, Capps capped a stellar Monday with a wire-to-wire victory over J.R. Todd in a battle of bright yellow Toyotas. Capps left first and never trailed in his Hot Wheels/NAPA Toyota GR Supra, stopping the clocks with a 3.986-second lap at 323.27 miles per hour to earn his third win of the season and the 76th of his career. Todd simply could not match the defending race winner, finishing runner-up with a 4.131 at 288.09 mph.

It was a Herculean effort for Todd just to make the final after brake-system failure in the semifinals saw his DHL Toyota being hauled back to the pits on a flatbed. Under the gun, the team pulled together and got the car ready for the final as Todd fell short of his third U.S. Nationals victory.

In addition to sporting the unique livery, Prudhomme himself was on the starting line and in the NAPA team’s pit area throughout the weekend, even warming up the car prior to one of the qualifying runs. So when Capps caught a glimpse of his former team owner standing behind him as he staged for the final, he said that the gravity of the moment quickly caught up with him.

 

 

 

 

“It was so very cool to be somebody that was picked to drive for him. To put this deal together with Mattel and Hot Wheels behind it, that was cool because they are such a legendary brand,” Capps said. “To have him behind the car all weekend is emotional. To see him standing behind me, I had flashbacks of when I drove for him. It was cool to get the fist bumps after every big round we had today, to see that old ‘snake’ come out. He was ready, he was pumped. He was telling me, ‘Go up there just like the old days.’ It was just a lot of fun the whole weekend.”

Of course, the most emotional moment came when Capps got his hands on the Wally trophy. Famously, Capps has had a love/hate relationship with the U.S. Nationals, winning championships and many of the sport's biggest races, but a win at the biggest race of the year had eluded him until last year. Now, Capps has back-to-back wins at the 'Big Go' and was quick to reminisce about a time when he wondered if he would ever win here.

“Every year I got harped on. Even when I won my first championship, I had never won the U.S. Nationals,” Capps said. “You don’t ever want to go your career and not have at least one. Even if you won world championships, there is a big void there. I made the comment a few years ago that the drag racing gods will decide when it’s your turn. There’s so much weird history here, and so many ghosts, I just said it is when they decide it is my time.

“It was my time last year. Then today, beating [Matt] Hagan and clinching the regular season was cool. Then to beat Robert Hight, who’s just running amuck this weekend, that was the car to beat. To get up and beat them like that was huge. Then, my Toyota teammate J.R. and not having lane choice in the final round. Our back was against the wall every round and we earned every bit of it today.”

Capps began the day with an easy win over Dale Creasy Jr, putting down his best lap of the entire weekend with a 3.894 at 326.87 mph in the first-round triumph.

He moved past Matt Hagan in Round Two in a pedalfest as the drivers left together, but began to lose traction early. Capps got to the line first with a 4.582 to Hagan’s 5.146.

In the semifinals, Capps advanced to his sixth final round of the season with a win over Robert Hight, the No. 1 qualifier and the winner of the Pep Boys NHRA Funny Car Callout from Sunday. Keeping with the theme of his previous two opponents, Hight lost traction early and couldn’t hang on as Capps sailed to the finish line first at 4.029, 323.50 mph.

Todd defeated Blake Alexander, Bob Tasca and Cruz Pedregon to reach his fourth final round of the year.

While Capps certainly drew attention throughout the weekend as the defending race winner, the real star of the show was the car itself. Capps tried to treat every round the same and not think about the legacy of the colorful snake on the door of his car.

 

 

 

“I was hoping I wouldn’t see the outside of the car (this weekend), but I could see a tinge of the hood and the yellow, which I never see in my normal car,” Capps said. “I was trying to separate myself a little more and not get emotional about trying to do better because Snake was here.

“The final round, believe it or not, they lowered the body and we were rushed so much to get up here I didn’t have time to get real super nervous for a final, which is good. They dropped the body and I could see that yellow and I said, ‘Don’t look at that big screen’ and there was Snake standing there and I was like, ‘S***, you told yourself not to look up there.’ It was a quick tree for both J.R. and I and we just took off, so I didn’t have time to get more emotional, thank God.”

After the race, as Capps had a moment to reflect on his 76th win behind the wheel of a Funny Car, he recalled what Prudhomme meant to his career, plucking a young man out from the crowd and giving him his first shot in a big show car.

“I wouldn’t be here, period, if he hadn’t seen something in me,” Capps said. “I’d never sat in a Funny Car, never driven one. We dropped the body the first day to get my license, and I had to take a timeout and raise the body up and shut it off. That’s what Funny Car is. It demands every bit of respect. To have him in my corner my whole life and the dad he was to me, you just can’t put a price on it.”

Capps’ back-to-back race wins at Brainerd and Indianapolis helped him to secure the regular-season championship over Hagan and Hight.

Now Capps shifts his focus from the famed track in Indianapolis to the Countdown to the Championship, where he is the defending series champion. And if last year’s Indy win was a precursor to things to come, he likes his odds beginning in a few weeks at Maple Grove Raceway, especially with crew chief Dean “Guido” Antonelli in his corner.

“There’s so many good cars right now, so we just hope to keep the momentum,” Capps said. “It’s great to get this win and today, Snake and I talked about the conditions and what Guido did and he was on top of what was happening. We’re going to see some tracks like this, but we also have a couple races into the Countdown and then it’s cool conditions and badass track surfaces. It’s going to be a throwdown, and I’m blessed to have a crew chief like Guido that could do what he did today.”