Reigning NHRA nitro Funny Car world champion Ron Capps didn’t lose any momentum in the offseason.

Capps powered his NAPA Auto Parts Toyota GR Supra to a 3.874-second elapsed time at 333.25 mph in Q4 to grab the No. 1 qualifying spot at the season-opening Amalie Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals Saturday.

“Yeah, very cool,” Capps said. “That round (Q4), for me, it was a little bit of anxiety because I couldn't see the Christmas tree. I could barely see the pre-stage, the blue, and then I started bumping it in and I could see the bottom half of the blue stage light, light up, but I couldn't see any ambers. I just said to myself, ‘Okay man, don't mess up and leave before the tree. Just wait until Robert (Hight) hits the gas and go, which is what I did. It was hard to go down the track because he is out in front of me, and you're used to just shutting it off when that car's out in front of you. I'm like, ‘Well, he is not pulling away, we're just staying there.’ Every time I do that, my brain would say, ‘Stop looking, focus on the track.’

“So, I'm looking and looking and looking, looking and I was like, ‘Oh, he is in front of me.’ I don't know how late I was. It was hard to judge, but when they told me what it was, how close it was, I mean that's down to staging. I mean that's just trickling it in. Guido (Capps’ crew chief Dean Antonelli) and the guys just throwing it down.”

This was Capps 36th career No. 1 qualifying position and second in a row at the Gators in Gainesville, Fla. He will face Terry Haddock in round one. 

Capps is aiming to win the Gators for the fifth time in his decorated career to go along with the titles he captured in 2006, 2007, 2015 and 2020.

If Capps wins the Gators for the fifth time it would tie him with his former boss legend Don Prudhomme’s five Gainesville Funny Car wins (1974, 1975, 1976, 1980 and 1987), which would make him the second-winningest Funny Car driver in the track’s history.

John Force, who qualified second with a 3.878-second lap at 332.59 mph, has won the Gators a record eight times – 1992-96, 1999, 2001 and 2017.

“I think I told you that our test session was going to be this week,” Capps said. “We prayed for no rain because most of the teams had already been out and tested those off weeks. We didn't want to make that decision and then get here and not be able to test. And then Guido wanted to run in the middle of the day and that was the decision. That's the Austin Coil in him. It's just discipline.

“We just made runs in the middle of the day and then we went up there and tried the clutch disc at five o'clock and it was still pretty warm, and it repeated. It was like a bracket car. But the speed was down a little bit. It did put a cylinder out. That test day we learned a bunch and we didn't look like we were heroes like a lot of those guys. But it all paid off so far. I mean that was what we planned, and these conditions were exactly what we saw. Guido took those low 90s and did what he does.”

Before Q4, Capps was sitting sixth on the qualifying ladder with a 3.912-second run, but that changed in an instant in his final qualifying pass.

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Capps could achieve his 50th round win for Ron Capps Motorsports in Gainesville. He enters the weekend with 46 round wins since branching out on his own in 2021. Capps has won back-to-back world championships in 2021-22 and his first title in 2016.

“All of us in this room talked preseason and we talked about how tough it was going to be, how close it was going to be, and how hardcore and pissed off a lot of the drivers are they didn't win the championship,” Capps said. “That's the thing, when you don't win it, you come out and you're so mad and you just want the season to get started. And pretty much all those teams today that made those runs down the track near the end, I mean the last half of the whole session, our teams are going to have to go through to win a world championship. There's no doubt. It was a great job by my guys.”

Capps acknowledged he’s still trying to digest his championship-winning season a year ago, his first as a team owner.

“All the talk about last year and everything that happened with the championship, how we won it, not that I was embarrassed by the way it happened, but I mean you look back and you're just amazed every time somebody brings it up because it was really cool the way it went down,” Capps said. “I've been on the other side of that coin so many times, many more probably anybody else in Funny Car. You have the motivation; you got the target so to speak. Everybody does. But you talk about the target with the No. 1 on the car and then on top of that to be lined up next to Robert Hight on every session, it's good and it's bad because you know if you're lined up with him and you don't see his car on a run or you hear it next door, you're doing pretty darn good because Jimmy Prock (Hight’s crew chief) is definitely somebody that sets the bar.

“But I'm almost embarrassed by how good my life is right now. I mean, just last year ... We're not going to brag about it. It's a big day (Sunday), but my gosh, what a way to start the year.”
Capps said dealing with the lack of vision in the sun is something he’s coped with in the past.

“All the dirt racing, I've had those things all pop up in other cars that I'm not used to, that aren't built for me. It's happened a lot,” Capps said. “When we won the March Meet in the fuel altered, we got delayed and I had a tinted shield on, and the sun went down, and it was almost dark. I'm in there and I'm freaking out because I have a tinted shield on it and it's almost dark and I'm in the final round of March meet in a fuel altered, in a race I've tried to win my whole life that meant so much. Those moments create weird anxiety as a driver.

“But the funny thing is, and kids have asked me before the Junior Dragster racers, ‘What's the one thing that I would recommend?’ And I do this a lot in qualifying, all my crew chiefs have laughed about it, but my lights aren't always killer in qualifying, and I do weird stuff in qualifying. I'll look completely away from the Christmas tree after I stage, and I'll look at part of the grandstand and just leave out of the corner of my eye when I see a flash of amber or I'll just do weird stuff because that stuff will pop up to distract you. I've done it in the past a lot, messing around in qualifying, trying to distract myself. I know it sounds weird, but those instances like that, it pays off. I'm sure my heart rate wouldn't didn't go up as high as it would've had I not ever been in that situation.”

Although Capps has been the best in the world two years running, he’s all about perspective for himself and his teammates.

“Again, most of you know me, I always judge people by how much they change when they have success handed to them,” Capps said. “It tells you a lot about a person and I try to be the same person whether we're running good or No. 1 or when your car is the worst and you're having just the worst weekend and things are not going right. The idea is to try to stay the same.”

“The funny thing is our team putting a car together like they have, brand new guys, we have four new positions where people moved around and brought in, and the cars been put together unbelievable. It starts up, it does everything perfect and runs like that. That's pretty amazing to bring in three kids and move some people around and have a car go out and do what it did last year at the Winternationals or at the World Finals (both in Pomona, Calif.). That's an amazing thing. Hats off to Guido.”