Capps

COMMERCE, Ga. -- Driving a 6000 horsepower, 320 mph nitro Funny Car in the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series could never be called a totally safe occupation. The job requires a high degree of skill and courage in a sport where any margin of error or momentary lapse of concentration could lead to disaster.

Take Ron Capps, the driver of the Skoal Camaro Funny Car owned by Don "The Snake" Prudhomme. His career has had more than its share of unexpected mechanical mishaps which have been frightening to both the veteran racer and those who follow the world's most powerful motorsport.

In Dallas last October, while racing his teammate Tommy Johnson Jr. at the O'Reilly Fall Nationals, one of the most terrifying accidents of his Funny Car career occurred when an engine explosion demolished the body of his race car and had Capps believing for a split second that his legs had received devastating injuries.

On Saturday, during qualifying for the 23rd Summit Racing Equipment Southern Nationals at Atlanta Dragway, Capps suffered another spectacular explosion in the day's final session just as his race car was approaching the finish line.

"The throttle stuck open and that caused it to blow" said Capps moments after safely emerging from his smoldering machine. "It happened suddenly and I've never been so happy to have an engine blow in my life. It's probably the scariest thing that can happen to a race car driver. I grabbed the brakes, pulled the chutes, and didn't get to the fuel shutoffs as quickly as I should have but at 313 miles per hour, panic is the only word that I can use to describe the feeling."

Despite his predicament, Capps did an impressive job of keeping the car off the wall as flames filled the inside of the car. He locked the rears wheels only a few hundred feet from the sand pit at the end of the track surface, skidded to a stop, and immediately jumped from the car.

It was the second Camaro body that his automobile had worn during the day. In Saturday's first session, the right front corner of the car, which had been hastily repaired after he struck a timing block in Bristol last week, caved in on his right front wheel. But having his throttle stuck open on a 4.91/313 pass was obviously much more unsettling.

It was the second major incident to befall the Prudhomme team in the last two weeks. In Bristol last Saturday, ironically also in the final qualifying session, Capps' Top Fuel teammate Larry Dixon crashed hard in his Miller Lite dragster. Larry escaped injury but had to bring out a brand new untested race car for eliminations and fell in the second round to Jim Head.

On Sunday, Capps will be climbing back into his car for eliminations, hoping to cast out the after effects of another disturbing close call.