The champagne remains corked, the bottles of the best wines resting in neat rows.

And Ron Capps keeps telling wife Shelley, “We’re going to open this bottle somebody sent us.”

But the phone rings, and the NHRA Funny Car owner-driver, and three-time and current champion has to discuss a business matter. Or he’s headed to the San Diego airport, ready to make an appearance for longtime sponsor NAPA. Or he has to join his Dean “Guido” Antonelli-led team at the Brownsburg, Ind., race shop. Or the couple is busy with daughter Taylor and son Caden.

So that third-championship celebration – the one most people assume he has reveled in since he defeated Robert Hight by three points last November – never has happened.

And it probably won’t. And that’s perfectly fine, even fitting, for Ron Capps.

“I’m mad at myself a little bit. We've gotten these great bottles of wine and champagne and gifts that people have sent and congratulations. And I haven't sat down to try to enjoy it. There's phone calls. Jay Payne called me. He’s one of the guys I've really looked up to my whole career, since I was a crew guy on an alcohol dragster, and just little things like that that I haven't sat down. It's just been nonstop, and I've enjoyed it,” Capps said.

“I'm not complaining. It's just been nonstop,” he said, “and I'm almost afraid. It’s weird. I'm at times afraid to sit down and celebrate, because I'm afraid I'll lose a step. I need to sit down and celebrate.

“But,” Capps said, anticipating this coming week’s Camping World Drag Racing Series season-opening Gatornationals at Gainesville, Fla., “the celebration for me and the good part about it is showing up at Gainesville and having the No. 1 on the car and hearing [announcers] Joe [Castello] and [Alan] Reinhart and our announcers on TV mention that ‘It's the reigning world champion’ when you watch the TV show. Little things like that are enough celebration for me, in that respect.”

He said, “So it hasn’t been a whole lot of celebrating – I guess just trying to get things ready. And I feel like I'll lose a step on getting ready for this season if I sit down to celebrate.”

 

 

Media members have asked Capps what keeps him awake at night, especially now that he has that debut as a team owner behind him, now that he has begun to learn how to balance his management and driving tasks, now that he has proven with another series crown that he is a success at it all.

What pushes him is that four-letter “f-word:” fear.

“For me, it's fear of losing or just fear of failing at anything,” Capps said. “It's always driven me at whatever I've done, whether it's wrestling growing up or whatever. And it drives me every morning now on the business side more. I can't wait to get strapped in the car and make our first hit and be around all the guys. But it's that fear that is always [the nagging factor].”

He said he was surprised to discover that even the notoriously tough customers he calls his drag-racing heroes have experienced the same worry. For example, Ed “The Ace” McCulloch, one of the pioneers of the sport and a man Capps said “was known to, if you looked at him wrong way back in the day, he'd knock your teeth out,” confided that he needed reassurance regularly. Just recently McCulloch, a former crew chief for Capps, sent Capps a surprising text message. In it he shared an article “that he said he woke up and read quite often when he needed it for motivation.”

And in an almost John Force-like echo, Capps said, “[With] these new kids or new drivers and new teams that are coming into our sport and ones that have gotten better that have been in our categories, you got to find a way to motivate yourself or you're going to slowly fall down that ladder.

“On top of that, having the No. 1 on the car, you got a little bit more of a bullseye than anybody else. And you've got teams that are very upset - like Hight and [last year’s third-place finisher Matt] Hagan and teams that really had a chance and for whatever reason [didn’t perform spectacularly]. And I've been in that position many times,” Capps said. “So has Guido. You’ve been just stewing for the whole offseason on what happened and watching videos and seeing posts of us with a championship trophy . . . and it's what used to drive me even harder when we didn't win it. So there's a lot to wake up and be motivated about. It's not hard for me to get motivated.”

Antonelli said he understood Capps’ feelings. He said he knows a champion cannot take his or her eyes off the goal, cannot take anything for granted, cannot assume winning always will be a snap.

“I've pretty much felt for the last couple of years there's 10 or 11 cars that can win an event at any time. So you can't ever kind of rest on your laurels,” the crew chief said. “And there's quite a few tracks that lane choice matters. So you have to press. So you're up against possibly smoking the tires to try and maintain lane choice and stuff like that.”

 

 

And with that, Antonelli reeled off a list of Capps’ competitors and why he expects each of them to take great glee in trying to derail Capps’ quest for a third consecutive championship and historic fourth overall. A fourth title – one Hight and Hagan also are pursuing – would tie Capps with the legendary Don “The Snake” Prudhomme (Capps’ former boss). A fourth also would match Top Fuel’s Steve Torrence, dual nitro-class king Gary Scelzi, Pro Stock Motorcycle’s Eddie Krawiec, and the late Pro Stock great Lee Shepherd.

Antonelli’s list of 2003 Funny Car contenders started with veteran Tim Wilkerson, two-time champ Cruz Pedregon, 2018 champion JR Todd, Hight, and his own former boss Force.

“Wilkerson, I mean, that guy runs unbelievable, considering he turns the knobs and drives. I can't imagine what that would take, because there's no way when he's bumping it into stage on Sunday that he's not thinking, ‘Man, I think I should have taken a half a nut off.’ And he's still drives great. So when he gets more money and he can pull that off, he's going to be difficult,” Antonelli said, referring to Wilkerson’s recently announced deal with Joe and Cathi Maynard’s organization as teammate to eight-time Top Fuel dominator Tony Schumacher.

“And obviously Cruz stepped way up the last two events of the season, so obviously he's going to be there. And I expect JR not to be happy where they ended up last year. That car’s going to be fighting hard,” Antonelli said. “And, I mean, Robert [Hight] probably didn't enjoy the winter near what he thought he should. And so he's going to be motivated. And Jimmy Prock [Hight’s crew chief] is. And of course, Force's Car [will be in the mix as he goes for a 17th championship]. I mean, that thing [Force’s Camaro], you never know. It could be low ET every round. So there are so many cars. I bet you this year, there's a chance 12 or 13 cars can win an event.”

None of that was a shock for Capps to hear. He knows it’s true.

 

 

“Yeah, the competitiveness of the sport right now [has] never been better, never been closer,” he said. “Every run down the track is going to factor in a big way. All these other cars are going to step up. We say it every year, and I sound like a broken record, but . . . it's going to be the toughest year ever.

“Robert Hight, look what they did,” Capps said, noting Hight’s eight victories and 58 round-wins and his rule over the standings for most of the season.

Likewise, he said, “Look what we did with our wins.”

Capps was 46-17 on race day last year, with five victories in nine final-round appearances. With 850 elimination round-wins in hand for his career, it’s possible Capps could reach the 900 plateau this season. He’s already in the top five on the sport’s all-time list. But recording 900 would move him up to No. 3 across all pro classes, behind Force (1,421) and Pro Stock’s Greg Anderson (912) – unless Tony Schumacher beats him to it. Schumacher will start the season with 866 round-wins.

Again, though, Capps concentrated on not what he is doing but rather what his competitors are doing: “It’s crazy to think how many cars ran well – and it's going to be even tougher this year, without a doubt.”

And Capps figured, the fans are “going to be the winners in that whole thing, for sure.”

When the season has played out, no matter what happens, maybe Ron and Shelley Capps can pop open some bubbly and drink a toast to the fans.