Veteran Funny Car driver Jon Capps is having a memorable March.
Fresh off his coveted win in the Nostalgia Funny Car class of the 67th annual Good Vibrations Motorsports March Meet on March 9 in Bakersfield, Calif., Capps will be competing in NHRA’s Big Show nitro Funny Car ranks at the Arizona Nationals, March 21-23 in Phoenix.
Capps, the brother of Ron Capps, three-time NHRA nitro Funny Car world champion, will be driving Winefsky Racing’s Nitro Moose Funny Car at Firebird Motorsports Park.
“I’m driving Winefsky’s car, with the plan for (Dylan Winefsky) to (make licensing runs after the event) on Monday (March 24) in Phoenix,” Capps said. “I’m very excited, I’m happy to try and help out the family to try and get their car down the track and sort out all the bugs if there’s any problems. They did it last year trying to get his license and they had just some bad parts that wouldn’t allow him to get down the track.”
Winefsky got his start in the NHRA Jr. Drag Racing League as soon as it was legal, and after eight years in the half-scale dragster ranks, he earned his Super Comp license at Frank Hawley’s Drag Racing School.
From there, he acquired an Advanced E.T. license in his family’s de-tuned Fuel Altered, and under the advice and guidance of nitro legend Johnny West, he then licensed in an NHRA Nostalgia Funny Car.
Jon Capps, who last competed in NHRA’s Big Show nitro Funny Car class a couple of years ago, is ready to be behind the wheel of the Nitro Moose entry in Phoenix.
“Nose down. Got to keep focused and try not make any mistakes,” Jon said about his plan for this weekend. “I mean the biggest thing is once you get out about 100 feet out there, it’s a whole different world. I mean the clutch starts locking up and off you go.
“Hopefully if we can get the car down the track, make a full run, that would be the goal. Just want to make sure that, ‘A’, their parts are sturdy enough to get the car down the track to get him his license and to be safe enough for him to compete after that. Just make sure that the car doesn’t do anything weird driving wise or doesn’t have any weird pull or brakes lock up or something weird.”
Jon acknowledged the euphoria of winning the storied March Meet at Famoso Dragstrip lingered. He claimed the title by stopping the seemingly unstoppable Shane Westerfield in the Nostalgia Funny Car final round.
“Monday morning after the race (on March 10), I got a text message from Mike Dunn congratulating me and I was like, ‘Holy shit, I just got a message from Mike Dunn.’ That’s what I wrote back to him. Then, I said, ‘Thank you Mike. It’s very cool. Thank you very much.’ Obviously, he’s one of the guys I looked up to as a kid. I also got a message from Frank Hawley, which was cool just to get congratulations from a guy like that.”
And the congratulations didn’t stop there for Jon.
“It (was a crazy week),” Jon said. “And I had to be at work (March 10) over on the coast at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant (in Avila Beach in San Luis Obispo County, California). Well, it was a couple hour ride Monday morning (March 10). I was going to drive over Sunday night (March 9), that was the plan, but things got a little out of control Sunday night.
“Reality had to set back in (when I got to work), but it was cool to walk into and some of the guys there are fans of the drag racing and so I walked into a pretty nice congratulations from some guys, so that was really neat.”
Jon joins his brother Ron as a winner of the coveted March Meet. Ron won his title in the AA/Fuel Altered class in a 1948 Fiat Topolino AA Fuel Altered owned by Hertzig Motorsports in 2020.
