4/10/06

Ever since Ron Capps made his NHRA Funny Car debut in 1997, John has said over and over again how much he admired Ron’s talents and personality. John has spoken to Ron on more than one occasion about coming over and racing with Team Castrol when John had an opening to fill, but it never came together. Now, it’s apparent to everyone why John has always envisioned Ron as being a future superstar of the NHRA.

While John, Robert, and Eric were again the big stories in qualifying this past weekend in Las Vegas, they couldn’t put a “W” in the Win Column while Capps picked up another runner-up finish—this time to Cruz Pedregon—and upped his lead in the POWERade points to 105 ahead of John. One of the real baffling aspects of Capps sudden surge in success is how he and his tuner, Ed “The Ace” McCulloch never put together the kind of round-winning consistency they’re enjoying in 2006 when they were teamed up on the F/C team owner by Don “The Snake” Prudhomme.

Now that they race under the Schumacher Racing banner, they have put together not just one outstanding campaign—last year when Ron & Co. finished second in the standings—but this year’s red hot effort as they have continued to race deep into eliminations at every national event.

Meanwhile, John, Robert, and Eric have been the stars of qualifying this season and the next objective for them has to be to convert their qualifying performances into some race day victories. Robert has the team’s only win in ’06, which is puzzling when you take into consideration how all three JFR Mustangs have been at the top of the qualifying results race after race.

While we’re on the subject of puzzles, Gary Scelzi’s ’06 fortunes continue to look bleak as he again suffered a first round loss in Las Vegas, leaving him with a single round win after five races this season. Even teammate Whit Bazemore (who beat John in the second round on Sunday) has now amassed more round wins than Scelzi at this point in the season and who would have predicted that?

The season is now just shy of ¼ of the way through and how the rest of the Funny Car battleground will align itself from here on out is anyone’s guess. Pre-season predictions all pointed to another real squabble between Team Schumacher and JFR, with some strong runs expected from Tommy Johnson Jr., Del Worsham, and the Pedregon brothers, but after five races, the only driver who has been rock steady on race day has been Capps. Simply stated, if John, Eric, and Robert have any intentions of bringing the POWERade championship back to Yorba Linda, they’ll have to keep pace with the Brut team and begin a string of consistency that will close what is slowly becoming a good-sized lead.

Ashley had one of her less successful 2006 outings in Vegas, losing in the first round to the unheralded Richard Putz. If you’ve been watching the Top Alcohol Dragster action this year, you’ve probably noticed just how level the playing field is in 2006. While dad is fighting for his life in Funny Car, Ashley is going to have to be at her absolute toughest to make any kind of a serious run at the Lucas Oil championship. I know she’d love to salt away a Big Prize before she moves to nitro Funny Car, perhaps as soon as next year.

The race schedule takes a three week break now as Palm Sunday and Easter will give the NHRA family some time to spend at home before we get back to work in Bristol, TN at the end of the month. Then, before you know it, the hot weather months will be upon us and that will almost definitely cause some unexpected results as track temperatures and racing conditions get just a bit more dicey. Don’t touch that dial!

I’ll be back with more “In the Groove” right after the next event and I’ll be popping up every Sunday on Inside Drag Racing on ESPN2 at 11:00 AM EDT. Plus, I’ll be making my Champ Car pit reporting debut in a few weeks when that series hits Houston’s Reliant Park in May, so as you can see, I’m keeping plenty busy. That’s why I love racing season so much!

Catch you soon!

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