Tight groove awaits in Reading
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| Capps |
The NHRA POWERade season is winding down, and we're back in the Funny Car points lead. We're 19 points ahead of John Force, but when you look back before the U.S. Nationals, Force was 17 points ahead of us. After one race -- in which we went to the semifinals and he fouled out in the first round -- he's now 19 points behind. It just shows you how exciting this seesaw battle to the finish is going to be, with just five races left.
This is similar to the way 2005 ended, but this time Gary Scelzi is not in the mix. It's down to just me and Force. Last year Scelzi won the championship at the last race, I was second eight points back and Force was third, 32 behind Scelzi.
I think last year the fight to the end at Pomona definitely gave me experience that I can use this year. I'm very relaxed and actually the Brut Revolution team is very relaxed. I kind of questioned our team mentally from afar a little bit before Indy because I wanted to see how the guys were going to react to losing the points lead. They're young guys and I've had to become kind of a leader, learning from Ace (crew chief Ed McCulloch) and team owner Don Schumacher. I've gone from the role of being a driver like I have in the past to kind of being a team leader.
My guys made me so proud that weekend in Indy at the U.S. Nationals. They put the car together well every time. They didn't do anything stupid. The parachute coming out the one qualifying run was my fault, the way I packed it. They didn't fold under pressure, and to go up there and go the three rounds that we needed to just told me a lot about my team.
I was very excited, even with a semifinal finish after that weekend.
A lot of what you don't hear about, or you might hear me talk about sometimes in interviews, is about team consultant Dan Olson. He's such a big part of the equation. He and Ace. Dan Olson kind of floats around between the different teams when he's needed, but he's a guy with a past a lot of people may not know about. He was the first crew chief with Tony Schumacher when he won his first championship. He's been around for a long time and he's definitely a guy I've wanted to work with. All of Ace's racing in his career has been with Dan Olson at his side. They work very well together and he's a very quiet, unassuming guy and he has been such a huge benefit to our team.
With five races left, we're going to go through a lot of pressure. Ace said it best in a team meeting after Indy: the team that makes the fewest mistakes is the team that's going to win this deal. And I feel very confident now.
As for the Reading (Penn.) race this weekend, I have a bitter taste in my mouth, because of being told to shut off last year on the starting line in Friday night qualifying for a purported oildown that obviously was already on the track before our burnout. I was very upset with Graham Light, I was very upset with Ray Alley and starter Rick Stewart because they didn't take the time to look at the track and see that the oil was sprayed by somebody else before us. They should have given us the run after that session (after they seemed to agree that it wasn't our team that oiled the track), because that cost us. We ended up qualifying in the bottom half and racing Robert Hight first round and we lost. And that could have cost us a lot of points toward the championship.
I feel like we're in a different position now and last year Robert left with the points lead after Indy and he ended up losing it. I just feel very confident and I am very at ease about the last five races of the season.
I'm excited about going to Reading. You hear every driver talk about how it's one of the most harrowing tracks for a Funny Car driver because the conditions are absolutely like Disneyland for the crew chiefs: good conditions and great air for the engines to run. And the track has one of the narrowest grooves. It's about as narrow as a car is wide. It's hard enough to keep the Funny Cars in the grooves as it is, but at Reading you have to be almost spot-on every run. And it's a very demanding racetrack for a driver.
It's going to be tough. I'm excited, but I'm also very eager. We had a great last half of the season last year and I really feel comfortable with the way the team is right now, and that we're going to finish as strong as we did last year. If we can do that, then if we get beat, so be it.
But somebody is going to have to be pretty good to beat us, I think, in the end here, and you have to have that kind of confidence with five races left if you're going to try to win a POWERade championship.
Wish us luck.
Ron Capps, who drives a Funny Car in the NHRA for Don Schumacher Racing, is providing a diary to ESPN.com during the 2006 season.
