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Motorsports | June 23 2014

A real victory celebration

It had been awhile since NHRA Funny Car driver Ron Capps had stood on the winners’ podium. Seventeen events, to be exact, stretching back to August 2013.

Capps had driven his Mopar-powered Dodge Charger R/T to five Funny Car semifinal rounds this season but came up short every time.

The drought ended Sunday, when Capps beat Alexis DeJoria to the finish line at the NHRA New England Nationals. It was the second Funny Car win in as many meets for Mopar and the Don Schumacher Racing team.

How excited was Capps to win? For starters, on live TV he shed his safety gear then slid across the drag car’s windshield and hood before accepting the Wally trophy and giving an interview.

The real fun started after Capps left the track. He and Wally spent a night on the town before heading back home to California. The adventures are chronicled on Capps’ Twitter feed, including some Vine videos. You can see them all at https://twitter.com/naparoncapps. Here are some examples (place your cursor over the Vine videos to see the Twitter comment):

What will Ron and Wally do for an encore? Maybe we will find out this weekend as the NHRA visits Route 66 Raceway near Chicago.

Dale Jewett

Do you know your blood type? Mine is 100 octane (not your standard blood bank classification). At any given moment, I’m thinking about cars – driving one, fixing one, buying one or (in my dreams) restoring one. So I love to tell stories that involve horsepower, brake and wheel diameters
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Do you know your blood type? Mine is 100 octane (not your standard blood bank classification). At any given moment, I’m thinking about cars – driving one, fixing one, buying one or (in my dreams) restoring one. So I love to tell stories that involve horsepower, brake and wheel diameters and 0-to-60 times – and the people who make it happen. Because behind every awesome vehicle are amazing people with vision and the desire to make it a reality. I cover Mopar, Dodge, SRT and motorsports for Stellantis Digital Media. I learned to drive on a 1973 Jeep CJ-5 with the rare Super Jeep option package and three-speed manual transmission. I still belong to the dwindling club of people who prefer to shift their own gears, and think the best way to drive is with the top down!