California native Ron Capps has been a steadfast fan of Bay Area sports teams.
 
But the Funny Car points leader from Don Schumacher Racing is at least an honorary Cleveland fan this week. Besides, he has had a curious kinship with Cleveland for years.
 
It’s not so much that Capps is a bandwagon sort of follower. He gave up celebrating his 52nd birthday with his family in Carlsbad, Calif., Monday to travel to Ohio’s largest city to promote this weekend’s NHRA Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals at nearby Norwalk.
 
Until Sunday night, Capps and Cleveland fans shared a championship-starved connection. Cleveland hadn’t won a major sports title since 1964, not since its NFL Browns defeated the Baltimore Colts in the NFL championship game (before the Super Bowl was established). Cleveland’s drought lasted 52 years, dating back to before Capps was born.
 
Capps can relate to that. Although he surely is weary of the dubious distinction, the NAPA Dodge driver is one of three professional drivers in NHRA history who have been runner-up four times without a championship. (He joins Pro Stock’s Kurt Johnson and Top Fuel’s Cory McClenathan. (Tony Pedregon was runner-up four times before he earned his two Funny Car series titles.) Capps, with 48 victories, is at the top of the list of successful drivers without a championship.
Cleveland teams have had close calls. The Browns appeared headed to the Super Bowl – until Earnest Byner fumbled the ball on the 1-yard line with just a minute, 12 seconds left in the 1987 AFC championship game against Denver. Baseball’s Indians, ultimately unsuccessful in the postseason since winning the 1948 World Series, also gutted out the so-called “Curse of Rocky Colavito” (brought on by the team’s decision to trade its popular outfielder) – and almost made up for losing the 1995 Series to Atlanta by taking the Florida Marlins to Game 7 and leading in the ninth inning, before reliever José Mesa blew the save and the title hopes.
Capps missed his chances at championships by NHRA-record narrow margins: by two points in 2012 to Jack Beckman in the Countdown format and by eight points to Gary Scelzi in 2005 in the pre-Countdown era.
So he understands the euphoria he has witnessed in Cleveland since he arrived there Monday.
“It didn’t take long to realize how crazy the city is about the Cavs winning,” Capps said from his hotel room on Ninth Street.
 
From the hotel, he said, he could see Jacobs Field, where he said he could see Progressive (Jacobs) Field, where he will throw out the ceremonial first pitch Wednesday night for the division-leading Indians’ game against the Tampa Bay Rays. He could see FirstEnergy Stadium (Cleveland Browns), home of the Dog Pound and its disappointments. He could see Quicken Loans Arena, home of the team that revitalized that boulevard of broken dreams this year.
 
“I don’t care who your favorite team is or where you’re from, you want to cheer for Cleveland because of what the Cavs accomplished and have done for this part of Ohio,” Capps said. “You can see how the city has been lifted by a sports team. You don’t want teams or cities to go that long without winning a championship.”
 
Maybe he would agree with friend and fellow Funny Car racer Tim Wilkerson, who once said, only half-kiddingly, “God should let everybody out here win once in awhile. It’s just so hard.”
 
At any rate, Capps is on a roll. He has earned the No. 1 starting position at the past three races and won two of those events. In that stretch, on the “Eastern Swing” of four races in consecutive weekends that ends with this one, he amassed 23 of a possible 36 qualifying bonus points. He also started No. 1 earlier this year, at Phoenix. (They are awarded after each session at 3-2-1 increments for those with the quickest elapsed times of each qualifying session). Before this year, the most No. 1-qualifier positions he ever had were three (in both 2009 and 2012).
 
So does this mean he’s taking care of business with the “little points” that made the difference in years past?
 
“We’ve lost championships in the past because we did not get enough of those bonus points,” Capps said, adding that in 2005 and 2012 he missed the chance to accumulate those. “Both of those years, and really throughout my career, we never did that well in qualifying,” he said.
 
However, he said, “Our car is very versatile to track conditions and is consistent. And that’s what it takes. We have as good a chance than I’ve ever had, and I’m in as good a race car that I’ve ever been in with [crew chief Rahn] Tobler, [assistant crew chief] Eric Lane, and this NAPA team.”
 
The Norwalk trophy (and the accompanying commemorative ice cream scoop from the track-owning Bader Family) has been about as elusive as a championship for Capps. Summit Motorsports Park at Norwalk and Maple Grove Raceway, at Reading, Pa., are the two active NHRA national-event venues where he has not won.
 
“The trophy has been a little elusive here,” Capps said of three runner-up finishes (2011, 2013, 2014) in the nine-year history of the event. “Norwalk is notorious for being hot, humid, and one of the trickiest tracks we go to. It’s a great racetrack and very fan- and racer-friendly. Everything they do there is first-class.”
 
Capps said he’ll try to get a peek at Wednesday’s downtown parade and celebration of the Cavaliers’ NBA championship, then he’ll have a first-class tour Thursday of Cleveland’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
 
If Capps rocks and rolls this Sunday and wins, he’d use his 49th event title to tie the legend and his former boss Don Prudhomme for No. 11 on the all-time nitro wins list.