By Rob Geiger, NHRA.com
Funny Car points leader Ron Capps beat drag racing legend John Force on a holeshot by one-hundredth of a second Sunday at Bristol Dragway to extend his lead in the POWERade championship chase. Capps was joined by Doug Kalitta and Jason Line in the winner's circle of the $1.5 million O'Reilly NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals presented by Q, the sixth of 23 races on the $50 million POWERade tour.
Capps posted a 4.793 at 319.52 mph to beat Force's quicker 4.788 at 310.13 mph. The difference came at the starting line when Capps left in .080 seconds in front of Force's .104-second start. Kalitta repeated last year's Bristol Top Fuel final by beating Rod Fuller once again. This time Fuller smoked his tires at the hit of the throttle. Line became the sixth different Pro Stock winner on the season when he took out point leader and teammate Greg Anderson by a 6.716- to 6.752-second margin.
The Funny Car final was a classic as Capps took the early lead at the start with a .080- to .104-second reaction time advantage only to fall behind the 13-time champ during the race. Even at 1,000 feet, the timers showed Force's Castrol GTX Ford Mustang ahead, but he was forced to lift of the accelerator, which allowed Capps to win by .01-second with a 4.793 at 319.52 mph to Force's 4.788 at 310.13 mph.
The Brut Dodge driver is now 3-2 in final rounds this year and 20-22 overall in his career. Force is 0-3 in finals this year and 119-71 overall. This final was a swing of 40 points in the POWERade standings with Capps now leading Force by 122 points.
"It's almost embarrassing when people say we're the points leader," Capps said. "I've been here before and I know it's a long time until we're done. I'm enjoying it now but like Roland Leong once told me, enjoy it when you can and be nice on the way up because you'll pass the same people on the way down. That's why I try to treat everyone with respect. I am having fun with this though.
"I'm in disbelief. I got on the radio and said, 'I can't believe it, we won again.' It's not that I don't have confidence in my guys but it's just so hard to win and when it happens a lot like it has this year it's sometimes hard to believe. I love the competition and I love this class. This is just a great time to be racing right now."
Capps seems to best from mid-pack. He started this day in eighth place and advanced past Scott Kalitta, low qualifier Eric Medlen, reigning champ Gary Scelzi, and Force. He used 4.7s against Kalitta and Force.
It had been 13 races since Kalitta reached a final round and he didn't let the opportunity pass him by, erasing Fuller with a 4.537 at a track-record 331.53 mph to remove any doubt that he had the best dragster on the property. The Mac Tools pro is now 26-24 in 50 final-round showings.
One year ago, Fuller lost to Kalitta in the final round of this race when he red-lighted at the starting line. This time he smoked the tires of his Valvoline rail at the starting line. Kalitta and Fuller moved up to third and fourth in the points, respectively.
"This has been a long time coming," Kalitta said. "It seems like forever since we've been to the winner's circle. The guys were just real hungry and they really wanted to win one, plus we've always run well here, which had us feeling confident. Rahn [Tobler, crew chief] has the set up for this place and we love being here. All the facilities Bruton Smith owns are first-class and we enjoy racing at his tracks.
"Getting by Rod a second time in the final here is something. I thought he was going to put us in the right lane but he didn't and when I saw Capps go down the left lane it made me feel real good. Once you get to the final you really want to go ahead and finish it off and we were able to today."
Kalitta was a machine on the day, staying in the mid-4.5s in wins against Scott Weis, Brandon Bernstein, and reigning champ Tony Schumacher.
POWERade Top Fuel point leader Melanie Troxel’s bid to tie a class record for consecutive final-round appearances ended when she left the starting line -.034 seconds early against second-round foe Fuller. Troxel was trying to tie teammate Tony Schumacher's mark of seven straight final-round showings. Her lead in the standings was trimmed from 156 to 139 points over Dave Grubnic.
The Pro Stock final was the ninth head-to-head, final-round match-up between Summit Racing teammates Line and Anderson with Line getting his third win in the series against his mentor. Just as it was all day, Line's GTO was slightly quicker than Anderson's and he took the win with a 6.716 at 205.35 versus Anderson's 6.752 at 204.70 mph.
Anderson and Line are now 1-2 in the POWERade championship chase, with Anderson leading Line by 51 points. Line improves to 9-7 with a trophy on the line, while Anderson drops to 40-20.
"I made it through a day without screwing up for once," Line said. "The truth is I owe this one to Greg really because he took this Rick Jones car [testing] and just ran it until they figured out some things that were slowing us down. I stayed back in the shop and worked on the motors and they fixed my car.
"It's interesting that we've had six different winners and I'm glad I'm one of them but really it stinks because we want them all to belong to this team. That's just the way we like it, but we also realize how hard this class is and we're just motivated to work even harder to get back on top."
Line's Pontiac GTO was the quickest of each elimination round, running low 6.7-second passes all day. Much maligned for his driving earlier this season, Line was a picture of consistency Sunday with an average reaction time of .035 seconds. Anderson's identically-prepared GTO was the second quickest of each session.
