Ron Capps

Hi, everyone

Just got to the track in Sonoma and got our Monaco parked. There is a relief of sorts when we get to the track in Sonoma every year, partly because it is close to home and I know I will be seeing friends and family and also partly because of the track itself. They park the coaches up on the hill way above the track with a view of the whole Sonoma valley, and we have a BBQ just about every night. So, it is sort of like being home and having the home-cooking feeling.

This week started off great. Waking up on Monday morning after a good race day is always a great feeling, but I knew we had a cool week planned on our way from Seattle down to Sonoma. We slept in on Monday morning and took our time getting to our first stop, which was at the “Great Wolf Lodge,” a couple hours south of the track. The place is pretty cool. You get a wristband when you check in that opens your hotel and allows you to go all over the hotel, and eat, drink and go into the water park area which is all indoors. They also have the magical quest thing that the kids get to do where you buy a wand and they use this wand throughout the whole place to wave at hidden things that add to their quest. All you see is hundreds of kids running around waving these wands at everything trying to get as many clues as possible.

The suite that I got was a “kids camp” suite that is a themed room with bunk beds for the kids that makes them feel like they are in the forest on a camping trip. Here is a picture of Caden and Taylor on the bunk beds when we first got there. It was a fight for the top bunk, but Caden called it first.

We got up early Tuesday morning and hit the road again. I knew I had nine hours to drive to get to Redding, Calif., to our next stop that night. I had gotten a room at the Red Lion hotel there and we got the Monaco parked and supervised the the kids by calling a cab spur of the moment and getting a ride to see the movie the “Space Chimps” that had just come out and the kids kept talking about. We had a good dinner across the street and, as you can see in these pictures, Taylor and Shell are giving the “3″ days to go until Taylor’s birthday. And in the other picture Caden and I are doing the notorious Pirate pose. It is his favorite, so I went along.

We got back to the hotel just in time for us to hit the pool and go swimming. We got up on Wednesday and drove a little ways, stopped to top the tanks off with Diesel and hit a truck wash and then we headed for the track to get parked. We hung out and watched a few episodes of the “Gilligan’s Island” DVD (three seasons) that I bought - we are now into season 2. It was the beginning of the color TV era and the first episode was in black and white. So in the second episode we can now see that Gilligan is wearing a red shirt and the skipper has a blue one on. See, you even get some trivia on this blog .

We had a great weekend in Seattle. Well, let me rephrase that. We had a great Sunday. Our qualifying wasn’t that great but, like I say, Ace and Ronnie and the NAPA AUTO PARTS crew always put a car under me on Sunday morning that can win. Hopefully we can get that first win with the big NAPA on the hood.

I have to run. The pre-weekend press commitments are already starting and the list is getting longer from Judy for the media stuff that I have to do. We are having the “draft” for the celebrity softball game that will be played in Pennsylvania before the Reading race, Scelzi is one of the coaches and he better pick me . Keep your fingers crossed for us. We are looking for another great weekend for all the NAPA racing fans. Talk to you next week from the lake!

RC

Hi everyone,

This Treo phone is coming in pretty handy as of late. Last time I wrote on here I was in Ohio about to kick off our big family trip in our Monaco coach and I told myself I was gonna try to write in the blog as often as I could to keep up with the trip and take as many photos as I could. I did take a lot of pictures so far, but it has been non-stop action since then.

I am in the NAPA AUTO PARTS hauler lounge watching “Ace” and Ronnie figure out our plan of action for qualifying here in Seattle on Saturday. We are not in the show at the moment and the sun has played games with us by staying hidden yesterday and now it is poking through the clouds, which will make the track temps rise and make it a lot more difficult on the crew chiefs. I am gonna write this and send it to Judy to correct any spelling issues and/or missed commas, and then I will try to add the pictures as well. You can click on the pictures to enlarge them, she said.

We had left Ohio and I drove almost straight through to Colorado. We did stop to celebrate Caden’s official b’day at a restaurant near a truck stop. They even came out and sang for him, and we let him (tortured) open a few presents at a time as I was driving. One thing about me and road trips, and it drives my family a little crazy, is I like to drive as much as possible in between so we can get to where we are going sooner, which means more time for me to get out of the seat and relax. So, Caden got to spend the whole day opening presents every few hours and he even saved one for the next morning so that he could, in his words, “make half the next day his b’day also.” Smart kid.

We got to Breckenridge on July 3 to a place called Tiger Run RV resort. It was awesome. A great place just a couple of miles from town and right behind our spot was the Blue River, which has some of the best fishing in Colorado, they say. Caden and I got his “Spiderman” fishing pole out several times and fished, as you can see here in the picture. We spent the 4th in town. They had a festival downtown (see picture) and we saw a great little play at a small playhouse in town and then watched a great fireworks show in Breckenridge.

The next week we drove to Bandimere Speedway and parked the coach and then I went to Boulder for a NAPA AUTO PARTS store appearance. The store owner Cole and his family were great and, let me tell you, he has a lot of loyal customers. Thursday we did the Mopar block party in downtown Golden. It is always a blast and this year I got to sit in Don Garlits’ Swamp Rat when he fired it up for the crowd. And he even had me hit the throttle once. It ranks up there on my list of cool stuff I have had the pleasure of doing.

The race in Denver was our first going to 1000 feet instead of the usual quarter mile. It was hard to judge when to shut the car off for a lot of drivers, me included. We qualified OK and made it to the quarterfinals, and we moved up a little more in the top 10 in the points chase, which is our goal right now.

We hopped in the Monaco and I drove until about 1 a.m. on Sunday night. We were following Del Worsham and his family and they got a little head start from the track. We got to Billings, Montana, on Sunday night and pulled into a rest area and I went to the back and jumped in bed. I got up at 6 a.m. and got right back on the road. We were trying to get to Lake Coeur d’Alene on Monday before dark and I was making pretty good time. We actually pulled into the RV park at the lake around 4 p.m., got parked, hit the leveler, pushed all four of the slide-outs out, and got the chairs out and watched the kids play and bbq’d. We got up Tuesday - we had rented a pontoon boat for the day - and spent the whole day out on the lake. It was a great time. We got up on Wednesday morning and drove about 30 minutes to Silverwood amusement park. They have an RV park right next door to it and I had rented a cabana at the water park for the day. There were some race fans there who saw our name on the cabana and the staff that was working there were NHRA fans as well and they took great care of us. We were right next to a wave pool. While Shelley and Caden were riding the waves behind us, Taylor and I spent some time relaxing and talking. We spent most of the day there and then went to the amusement park that night and rode some rides and the kids won two big ol’ teddy bears by throwing bean bags.

When Thursday morning came I was up early and we drove the five hours to the track at Pacific Raceways, got parked by Barry, who is the NHRA official who parks motor homes and trailers at each event. We have a great spot with some other kids and they are able to play all day long right outside the coach, so it makes it nice.

I am gonna see if I can get Taylor to write a little blog next week about her perspective on our trip and the racing. Her b’day is next Friday in Sonoma. We are getting ready to head up to make our run. Talk to you soon.

RC

Hi, everyone

I am in line for the “Top Thrill Dragster” ride at Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio. Shelley and the kids flew into the Norwalk race on Saturday and we are going to be traveling in our Monaco coach from here, ALL the way through the Brainerd, Minn., race in August. I am going to do a blog throughout the Capps’ family trip, with pictures as well.

I sat down on the computer about three months ago and planned pretty much every day of this upcoming trip, so it will be interesting to see how it works out. I will give you a quick rundown: We are here at Cedar Point at the RV resort for two days, have a cabana rented at the water park the whole day today, then in the morning we are driving the 20 hours to Colorado, stopping to celebrate Caden’s birthday on the 2nd. Our trip is to the Breckenridge ski area to an awesome RV resort just outside of town, and we will be there for a week. It has a river next to it for fishing, hiking trails and all kinds of cool stuff in the area for the kids as well. We will then drive to the Denver track, do some appearances for NAPA AUTO PARTS and Mopar, and then hopefully find the winner’s circle on Sunday. Then we are driving straight through to Coeur d’Alene Lake to spend a couple days there. We did it with the Worsham family a couple of years ago, rented a houseboat and had a great time and hopefully they can join us again this year. Then we will drive to the Seattle track and once again try to navigate to the winner’s circle at that track. Then on Monday I booked us a room at the Great Wolf Lodge Resort in Washington, which is a water park/hotel resort and we have a pretty awesome themed room the kids will freak out on when they see it. It has waterslides all through the place. Should be a blast. Then we are gonna drive all day Tuesday and stop in Redding, Calif., on Tuesday night at a hotel, like we do every year, maybe catch a flick and then back to the hotel so the kids can swim. I see a trend forming here . The next day we will get the Monaco washed and head to park at the Sonoma track where we have the most outrageous parking spot on the tour that looks out at the entire Sonoma valley from a hill above the race track. After the Sonoma race we are driving a few hours south to where I grew up on the Central Coast. We are spending the whole week on San Antonio Lake with some boats and Sea Doos and good friends and family.

We try to hit the California Mid-State Fair in Paso Robles every year at night. It is only 15 minutes from the lake and I got tix for Matchbox 20 on one night and Fergie for another. Shelley and Taylor love both of them, so it will be very cool for them. We will then head down the Central Coast about an hour to the Pismo Beach RV resort and spend the weekend down there again, like we did earlier this year.

Taylor will start cheer leading that next week, so just Shelley, Caden and I will be traveling in the Monaco to Brainerd, Minn., for the race and then afterward we are going to spend a few days at Shelley’s aunt and uncle’s house on a lake about two hours from Brainerd where Caden is out to get lots of practice fishing for walleye.

Aren’t you glad you said to yourself, “I wonder how Ron is spending the next two months of his life?” Well…you asked! .

I am still in line. Glad I have this phone that lets me type my blogs, then I send it to my lovely publicist/babysitter Judy Stropus, who then fixes anything I messed up and then she is able to post it here on NAPAonline.com.

I am really proud of our sport. It amazes me how many people have recognized me here at this huge amusement park. I am wearing nothing that has anything “racing” on it and it just really tells you how healthy the sport of NHRA Drag Racing is, and most of the fans approaching us tell us how much they love those Michael/Ron NAPA commercials they have been seeing, and how they can’t wait to see what is next. Taylor laughs at me because I still laugh every time I see the commercials. The look on Michael’s face is priceless and, yes, he is that funny most of the time we are together.

I am getting closer in line for the ride and I am starting to get that feeling I get when my crew chief “Ace” points to me through the front windshield before sending me on a 4-second pass at 330 mph.

I know I didn’t write last week after the E-Town race, but with Scott Kalitta’s accident and death, it was hard to sit down and write about anything. The race in Norwalk was good medicine for all of us. Scott would want us to go out and do what we love, and it’s what he loved to do as well.

We had a great weekend in Norwalk. We qualified No. 2 and went to the semifinals. It dropped a cylinder on the left side of the engine. When you hear a driver say that it means that the spark plug usually stopped firing for some reason and when that happens you have all of that Nitro, about 90 gallons a minute, going into that cylinder and coming out unburned. We figure each cylinder makes at least 800 horsepower, and if you take that way from one of these engines, it just isn’t a happy engine. That moved us into the top 10 in the points for the “Countdown” and with these next three races back-to-back-to back, we just need to keep building our momentum with the NAPA Charger.

Hold on. I am next in line for the ride,be right back……………..

Oh my God. Wow! Fans ask us what it feels like to drive a Nitro Funny Car. Let me tell you, this ride is about as close as you could get. Wow. That was worth the two-hour wait for sure! Whew!

All right, as I was saying, we are looking forward to the Denver race as a team, and I am looking forward to sharing the next two months of our road trip as well. Off to the water park for the day. Talk to you soon!

RC

I am in between making test runs here in Martin, Michigan, at US 131 dragstrip. We drove over here on Monday morning after we raced in Joliet and, while it rained off and on yesterday, we have a clear day to finish testing here today. The NAPA Dodge team had planned on spending a couple of days at Joliet testing with a pretty big list of things to try. Because it is so competitive during these races just to qualify, it makes it difficult to try and implement something in the car that you want to try while you’re in the middle of trying to get qualified in the top half of the field. We are testing a bunch of things like spark plugs, supercharger belts, clutch parts, along with tire-pressure changes, wheelie-bar heights, that this new chassis may react to a little differently than our previous chassis did. So far, so good, though. The people here at this facility have been very cool and have welcomed us like family and the track itself is very worthy of holding an NHRA national event in the future, in my opinion.

Speaking of tracks, I just saw on NHRA.com that the Angel family down in Houston are making improvements to the Baytown track. I told you when we left there that they would listen to the racers and do everything in their power to fix the issues we had there earlier this season. That event is one of my favorite stops on the tour for a lot of reasons, one being that the track can and will hold record times if the weather allows, and I will make a bet with you that when we go back in 2009, we will all be praising it again.

We just made another test run and it only went about 150 ft. and, while that would be a negative thing usually, it is almost teaching us more in the fact that what we are testing doesn’t work, which Ace and the NAPA team can scratch off our list of things to try at a race and not have to worry about losing a qualifying run trying it.

It has been a pretty eventful week or so since I wrote on here. I went to Eldora Speedway to run Tony Stewart’s “Prelude to the Dream” race that was on PPV. “Smoke” wrote a check for one million dollars to Kyle Petty for the Victory Junction Camp. There are some great pictures on their website,
http://www.eldoraspeedway.com/weeklyphoto/08album9a/index.html of our NAPA AUTO PARTS special edition late model and a few of me as well. As you can tell, all the drivers had a great time and a great race. If any of you missed it on PPV, it will start airing on SPEED channel in a couple of months, they say.

I will drive back to Chicago tonight and catch an early flight back home to San Diego and have another rare weekend off. Since the Capps family has such a hectic schedule and Taylor and Caden’s birthdays are in July, which is probably one of the busier months we have on the NHRA schedule, we are going to be celebrating their birthdays this weekend. We are having Taylor’s birthday party at K- Speed in Carlsbad. It is an indoor karting place that my friend Boris Said from No Fear is very involved in, Taylor has invited about 15 of her closest friends and they are going to get to have a big race and then cake and maybe a movie.

Since the kids are traveling with us between the Norwalk race and the Brainerd race they kinda get two birthday parties, one at home like these and then another one on their birthdays in Sonoma. Caden’s party this Saturday will be at a kids’ gym near the house. He invited his whole class from school and he has asked for a Kung Fu Panda cake . He is a pretty simple kid. He wants anything that has to do with Star Wars.

We just made another run. The NAPA Charger is doing everything that Ace wants it to do and I am getting more and more comfortable with the chassis.

There are a few Funny car teams here: Gary Scelzi’s team, Jack Beckman’s car, Del Worsham’s car, Bob Tasca’s car, to name most of them, and everyone seems to be in full test mode.

Our next race will be in Englishtown, N.J., and then straight to Norwalk, Ohio, the following weekend. So, we will have to be at our best to try and improve our position now that we are in the top 10 in the points.

We are getting ready to make another run here so i better get suited up. Talk to you next week.

RC

It’s back to racing after a great weekend off watching the Indy 500 and the World 600. It was nice that our schedule went back to having Memorial Day weekend off from the NHRA tour. The last few years we have raced in Topeka, Kansas, on Memorial Day weekend and, to be honest, it just didn’t seem right.

It was really a nice Sunday. I got to watch the races all day and into the night and then we pulled out one of my favorite DVD movies, “Dumb and Dumber,” and had movie night to end a great weekend.

When I had flown back from Bristol and landed in San Diego I had a message on my phone from someone at Valvoline who had a last minute request. She went on to say that a bunch of Valvoline plant managers were in California for meetings and she wanted to surprise them by having me show up at dinner on their last night in California. When she mentioned that dinner was at Las Brisas in Laguna Beach, I couldn’t refuse <grin>. It was only about an hour’s drive from the house and it was really cool to meet and talk with the people behind the product, especially with Valvoline.

It’s funny, but Valvoline was the first actual sponsor I had when I started driving John Mitchell’s Montana Express A/Fuel dragster and Mike Gruber had given us all the Pyroil and Valvoline we could use. For me it was the only thing, I told John, I could bring to the table to drive the car. So they remain dear to my heart.

It was sure nice to be able to get some runs on our new NAPA car in Bristol. I had mentioned in the last blog about the changes that the NAPA team needed to make on the chassis. They had to change a lot of the mounts on the Dodge Charger body since the new chassis is a little wider and that required a lot of small but very important modifications. This is the first car that has taken me much longer to get comfortable in the cockpit. I had to go to a completely different throttle pedal assembly. I have used the same style for 10 years, so that was a huge thing for me to try to adapt to, but every run we made in Bristol made me more and more comfortable with it.

Another huge difference is the padding surrounding me in the driver’s compartment. With the cage being wider it has allowed us to completely pad the entire area around me, and that in itself has taken a few runs to get used to. The guys from ISP, who make the form-fitting seats and the padding in our NAPA car, have had to work with us on getting me comfortable, and when I say work, we are talking about taking one eighth of an inch off of here and adding a quarter inch there. But, I have to tell you, I have never felt as safe in one of these 8,000-horsepower Funny Cars as I do in this new car. And the most important part is that Ace and the NAPA team seem to like it as well, and that is a good thing.

I just looked at the weather forecast for this weekend and it is calling for high-80, low-90-degree temps, It is going to be survival of the fittest and I am feeling pretty good about our NAPA team when it comes to battling the elements and driving for Ace in conditions that test every part of a race team. It’s going to be fun.

Following the Topeka race, we are flying to Indy and then heading to Eldora Speedway to race in Tony Stewart’s “Prelude to the Dream” late-model dirt race. Here is a link for it: (http://www.hbo.com/events/prelude/index.html ). It will be on Wednesday night, June 4, and it will be live on PPV. I just saw the rendering for the late-model car I am driving. It is going to look awesome. Hopefully I can make the NHRA fans proud again. Our goal is to raise one million dollars for Kyle Petty and the Victory Junction Camp. We came close last year and I think we can do it this year.

The next morning we will be up in Chicago getting ready to race in Joliet that next weekend. One cool thing for the NHRA fans is that the racing is going to start coming at you pretty fast, and as far as the race teams go, it will seem even faster ‘cause pretty soon we will be through the West Coast Swing and the U.S. Nationals will be at our front door. And if you aren’t safely in the top 10 in points, you will need to start panicking. Indy on Labor Day weekend will be the last race you can claim points and secure your spot in the Countdown by being one of the top 10 in the points.

The start of the West Coast swing is Denver, and Denver is the race that ALL of the Funny Car teams have to be running one of the new approved safer chassis. It will be very interesting to see how some of the teams at the top of the points right now will adapt to the new cars as well.

I had mentioned a while back that they were going to start running one of the NAPA commercials that we did with Michael Waltrip and me. It was supposed to start at our St. Louis race a few weeks ago, but someone at NHRA or ESPN didn’t get that memo, and the fans were quick to let me know it didn’t air <grin>. But I am told that it will air during this weekend’s race in Topeka. I know you guys will like it as much as I do. It makes me laugh every time I watch it.

I am going to head back upstairs and finish packing. Talk to you next week.

RC

Surprise, it’s raining again…

I am in Cincinnati waiting to board my connection into the Tri-Cities Airport for our Bristol race this weekend. It is raining pretty hard here right now - imagine that. We are coming to town and there is a chance of rain? Naw….

Had a great weekend off. Actually, it was a pretty busy weekend off, as my wife Shelley will attest. When I am at home and it is between races I don’t usually like traveling if at all possible, but as I mentioned in the last blog, Ronnie (Thompson) and Leslie got married in Indy last Saturday and I had called our good friend Chad Head who works for the IRL and he set me and Shelley up with passes for Pole Day at the Brickyard. I have been to the race a few times, but we had the most unbelievable time on Saturday. Chad got us garage passes and tix to the IRL’s suite overlooking pit road, but then he brought us right to the start-finish line. Now, when I say the start-finish line, I mean we were right at the strip of bricks between pit road and the track.

Here is a picture of Shelley just as Scott Dixon made his pole run. We stayed there for about 15 qualifying runs and it was awesome watching those cars come out of turn 4 and then go by us only a few feet away at almost 230 mph.

I also visited the press room, thanks to the p.r. folks at IMS, for about an hour and chatted with the journalists. The asked a lot of great questions.

We flew home on Mother’s Day and had my mom and Shelley’s mom over for a bbq at our house. This week has been a long time coming. Caden is 6 years old now and I woke up at 4 a.m. on Saturday morning when we were in St Louis in a  sweat with this very uneasy feeling that, with me being on the road so much, my son wasn’t gonna get to do all the cool stuff I got to do. So when I got home, he and I went down and got him some golf clubs and I called my friend Doug and we took him for his first golf lesson. It was priceless. Then, I went out and bought him a racing kart and on Wednesday after school we went up to Apex Raceway. They had an open test going on and we suited him up and he made his first laps on a race track. As you can see in the picture, he was pretty much on cloud nine after his first lap. I do think I aged about five years watching him, though <grin>.

This weekend in Bristol will be our first race running the new chassis that will be mandatory for all teams to be running by the Denver race, as I told you before. We tested on Monday in St. Louis and while we only made one full run to the finish line with it, we are hoping that the weather allows us to at least get a few runs of qualifying on it before race day here in Bristol. But either way, the NAPA Auto Parts crew always gives me a great car, so we will just have to adjust to whatever conditions come at us.

Have to run, Plane is boarding. Talk to you next week.
RC

We made history in St. Louis, sort of…

Not the best way to be in the history books. After another great weekend of consistent runs during qualify we were rewarded with a first-round match-up with John Force, who was teetering on the chance to go in the history books with a jaw-dropping 1,000 round wins.

The NAPA guys once again put a great car in my hands and we lost a very close race to John with him running a 4.86 to our 4.85 and I became that name in the footnotes under his name in the record book. 

I am still at the track this morning as we are testing our new Murf McKinney chassis. It is the chassis that will be mandatory by our race in Denver in July. I am also driving Gary Scelzi’s car as well. It is the great thing about the multi-car team here at DSR; it gives us a chance to try different things and also get a lot of seat time. We have a weekend off before our race in Bristol next weekend. “Ace’s” assistant Ronnie Thompson is taking the plunge on Saturday in Indianapolis, so Shelley and I are gonna fly out and celebrate with Ronnie and Leslie. He found a good one and we are still trying to figure out what she sees in him (just kidding, Ronnie). They make a great couple and it should be a great wedding. 

Mother’s Day is next Sunday, so it will be nice to just hang out at home. My mom will be down visiting and Shelley’s mom and dad will come over to the house on Sunday afternoon for a nice bbq. 

I have to say thanks to Dan Olson and the NHRA Safety Safari for getting the track prep back to where it needs to be. It was a hot issue with the racers and the fans for a few races and I applaud them for making the change and the result has been the great side-by-side racing we have seen in the last couple of races. There are still a lot of things that need to be improved on with the racers and the NHRA. Communication is the key and this last weekend we had a lot of team members finding things on the track, such as nuts, bolts, tools. And while Dan had issued a notice last year for the teams to really try to keep those things from coming off of the cars, I see no reason why we can’t have more people checking the track between runs. They are asking for fewer team members to be out on the track and yet these guys are walking back with a handful of stuff. And there were two fuel cars that I know of for sure that had flat tires after taking the turnoff last weekend from running over something on the track. And that can’t be a good thing.

OK. I’m getting off my soapbox for this week <grin>. I have been working on a family trip this year. Instead of just the West Coast Swing (Denver, Seattle, Sonoma), I am flying Shelley and the kids into Norwalk, Ohio. I had so much fun last year with it being my first time at that track, I decided that we will leave Norwalk after the race and take our Monaco up to Cedar Point for a day and a night and then we are going to drive the coach to the Denver area early and spend the off week (and the 4th of July) at an awesome RV park near Breckenridge, Colorado, before heading to Golden, Colorado, the Thursday night before the race for the big Mopar block party in Golden. I am really excited about getting the kids to a place where we can fish and hike and do all the cool outdoorsy stuff. 

Then from Denver we are going to do what we did last year between Denver and Seattle on our schedule, when we stopped and spent a couple of days at Lake Coeur d’Alene with the Worsham family before heading to Seattle for the race. The kids had a great time and it was really nice for me to unwind a little in between the races last year. 

We’ll need to go make another run. The NAPA guys are yelling at me to get suited up. Talk to you next week.

RC

Rain, rain go away…And this time it listened! You know when you have one of those weekends and you have some really cool plans set up for something really fun and then you see the weather forecast and it looks worse than bleak? That is what our weekend was like in Atlanta last weekend. From the time we landed in Atlanta, they said it was gonna rain through the following Tuesday.

Well, we were racing close enough to the NAPA headquarters in Atlanta that we had the pleasure of getting a few of NAPA’s executives who were going to be able to come to the track and see first-hand what it’s like at our NHRA events.Although it was supposed to rain on Friday and Saturday, it never did.

We had a great car in qualifying. I believe we were one of only a few cars to go down the track under power in all four of our qualifying runs, so we really felt good about our NAPA Dodge Charger when qualifying was over. We did end up getting bumped down the to the tenth spot, but nowadays it seems that it doesn’t matter where you end up, you are going to have a tough competitor in every round. And Sunday was no exception as we had Robert Hight from John Force Racing in the opening round. We didn’t have lane choice and the right lane seemed to be slightly better than the left, but the car in front of us was shut off after his burnout and he had oiled the right lane down a bit. It was a pretty lengthy clean up and, in that time, Hight’s team decided to switch lanes and take the left lane.

I have talked about how determined this NAPA team is and we had another pretty big gut-check facing that team first round without lane choice, but that is why I love racing with my crew chief “Ace” and the NAPA team. They gave me a great car and we got the win with a very stout 4.87 @ 313 MPH! Whew! That was big.

That put us up against Cruz Pedregon in round two and “Ace” and the guys did it again. We ran another 4.87, this time at 318 MPH, and we won a very close race, as he ran a 4.90 and I could hear him out the window of our Dodge the whole way down the track.

Well, you probably already know that we lost the semifinals to Ashley Force because her win in Atlanta has been big-time news all week, and much deserved, I must add.

All in all, a great weekend for the NAPA team. We had Mr. Susor, Mr. Spencer, and Mr. Rearden, to just name a few, out to the race and the rain held off long enough for them to get to see the NAPA team do well on the track and  the NAPA hospitality area was bulging with our NAPA guests, who were treated to a great day on Sunday.

We kinda had the  best of both worlds on Sunday. In between winning rounds, the NAPA guests and I were watching the big screens in the NAPA hospitality area and cheering Michael and the NAPA team on in Talladega and at one point, as we got ready for the semifinals, I looked over and Michael was leading! I got strapped into the car hoping that he was gonna pull it off, but he said they had some engine problems and fell back a bit. Oh, well, it was fun for a while.

Michael and I got to see everyone at NAPA’s Atlanta office on Thursday. We signed some autographs, gave away some prizes, had a great lunch and got to catch up a little on what each of us has been up to as we zig-zag the country racing.

I got the word that this weekend’s ESPN telecast from our St. Louis race will air the first of the commercials with Michael and me together. It’s hard to pick a favorite, but the one they are starting this weekend is one of mine, for sure. It makes me laugh every time I see it.

I am racing in a dirt track race this Thursday night at Tri-City Speedway with about 15 NHRA drivers in crate-motored Late Models, and then we are also racing in Bristol on the half-mile on the Saturday night of our race in Bristol and they are doing something pretty cool. They are letting the fans vote on the Bristol website as to who they think should start up front. I cannot wait to be able to say that I have raced on that half-mile Bristol track, and with 20 NHRA drivers on the track at the same time trying to turn left, it should be well worth the price of admission.

We are ninth in the points and only a couple of rounds from being in the top five, so we are looking forward  to St. Louis this weekend. They have repaved the track recently, so if the conditions stay cool, we could see track records fall, I think.

I think I told you how much of a Stars Wars fan our 6-year-old Caden is, I have been on the road a lot and he had asked for a Daddy Day when I got home from Atlanta, so it is “Empire Strikes Back” tonight on the big screen. Just him and me and a bag of his favorite snacks. Talk to you next week.

RC       

 
Hey, all, I am sitting in the airport in Indy hoping to finish this blog before hopping my plane back home to San Diego. I just left Murf McKinney’s shop after getting fitted for our new chassis. We hope to test it soon and then hopefully implement it as our primary race car soon thereafter.  Let me back up first. We had such a great weekend in Vegas that I want to talk about it, but I need to back up and talk about what we did prior to the race. With very few “free” weekends anymore and our Monaco motor home on the road for me to stay in at the races. I planned a family trip for our weekend off we had between the Houston and Las Vegas races since my motor home heads back to Atlanta after the Vegas race. The kids were also off for their Easter break, so all the planets lined up for a road trip. We piled into the motor home and drove up to Pismo Beach and parked it at the Pismo Coast Village RV park that is right on the Ocean and adjacent to the famous Pismo dunes. We had such a blast there that I think we are going to drive down there straight from the race in Sonoma and stay there again this summer.  I grew up only 15 minutes from there in San Luis Obispo so I got to see a lot of old friends as well as a lot of family. One afternoon, our friend Matt Miller brought us down some quads and as you can see in the picture, my wife Shelley (left) and Taylor had a blast riding in the dunes on them and they are already planning the next dunes ride this summer. That night I rounded up my Mom and Dad and a bunch of friends and family together and took them down the road to the The Great American Melodrama & Vaudeville in Oceano and watched “The Road to Oildale.” It is one of those small places that has the sawdust on the floor, and you get to boo and hiss the villain and cheer on the hero and the kids had a blast. The cast had a few race fans in it and we got to go up and take a picture with the cast. They even put a wig and glasses on Caden, as you can see. We all thought he looked like Harry Potter (grin). We then all jumped in the motor home on Wednesday and spent to whole day driving to Las Vegas. As you know, I have been preaching about how hard our NAPA AUTO PARTS team has worked to get our car back to the top of the standings and to be one of the cars favored to win every weekend, and my crew chief “Ace” did just that. We qualified in the sixth position in some very hot and grueling conditions. My wife Shelley and I were invited to have dinner with some of the NAPA folks in town on Saturday night and it would have been a very long dinner if we had struggled in qualifying. But the guys gave me a great race car and we were looking forward to dinner. We were on our cell phones during dinner trying to get any news on how Michael Waltrip and the guys were doing over in Phoenix. Turns out he had a great run at that race, so I knew we had to try to do the same.  Race day on Sunday was even hotter with the temperature in the low 90s, we had a first-round match-up with Del Worsham, who had won the previous race in Houston, so we knew we had our hands full. Once again, Ace and the crew put a great run together and we beat Del and then went on to win the quarterfinals as well, which put us in the semifinals. We lost lane choice for the semifinals and that ended our day. But it moved the NAPA AUTO PARTS Charger all the way up to 10th in the season points.  All of that hard work and testing has given us the race car that we are used to having and it couldn’t have happened at a better time. We are headed to Atlanta next week for our race there, and on Thursday prior to the race Don Schumacher and I, along with our NAPA AUTO PARTS Funny Car will make a visit to the NAPA Headquarters. Looking forward to seeing everyone there!

Apparently the fans have really taken a liking to our new joke telling “Funny Car” from the new NAPA commercials ’cause that is all I hear when I am walking through the pits. “Hey, Ron….Hey, Ron….Hey, Ron….” I am getting a feeling that our really bad joke telling “Funny Car” is building a pretty strong fan base already and his t-shirt sales might surpass mine as well .

You know, there was a chance of rain in the forecast at most of the three races prior to this weekend and nobody got the feeling that we would lose qualifying runs due to the weather at those races, which is just what happened. Then we roll into Houston and every possible forecast said there was going to be thunderstorms Thursday through Monday and there was no way we would get any qualifying in, let alone the race on Sunday. So what happens? We end up getting all four runs of qualifying and the race went on as scheduled with no delays. I thought that was pretty strange. The NAPA Auto Parts Funny Car was awesome in qualifying. We were No. 1 after the first session, and when qualifying was over on Saturday, we ended up with a great No. 5 qualifying position, our best best start in 2008.

The parity in the Funny Car class showed itself again this weekend as the points leader failed to qualify for the race and a lot of the top cars in the points went out first round and a car that didn’t even qualify for two races this year ended up in the winne’rs circle in Houston.

Our crew chief “Ace” has really been trying to find his sweet spot for a tune-up with all the changes this year, and I heard Michael Waltrip talking about it again on his “Inside NASCAR” show last night. He talked about how the story so far this year in NASCAR is the “Car of Tomorrow” and all of the teams getting used to what the COT wants as far as the car setup goes on each track. That is really kinda of the same scenario with our class as well. We see guys at the top of the standings this year that you haven’t seen in the last few years and some really dominant cars from the last few seasons not at the top of the points chart.

You have to remember, it is still very early in our season, but I will almost guarantee you that you will see things change as some of those teams start to get more runs on these cars in the next few races. That is why I am always quick to remind our NAPA crew guys that greatness always trickles down from the top. It’s pretty obvious that our sponsor NAPA Auto parts is used to being a leader in everything they do, and our team owner Don Schumacher has the best sponsors and the best people surrounding him because he knows how to get the best out of people, and “Ace” is as good at leading a race team to battle as anyone I have ever been around.

We have a weekend off before we are racing again in Las Vegas in a couple of weeks, and with the changes that we made to the car last Sunday morning, I can tell you that we are really looking forward to getting on the track and putting the NAPA Auto Parts Charger back up in the points where it is used to being.

The kids are out of school for Easter break, so Shelley, Taylor, Caden and I are going to hop in the Monaco and drive up the California coast to Pismo Beach and spend the weekend and part of next week camping on the beach and seeing family and friends up in San Luis Obispo, where I grew up. On Saturday I am going to be making an appearance for a grand opening at a motorcycle shop that a childhood buddy owns in Paso Robles. The coolest part about it is that I will get to sign autographs with Motocross champion Ricky Johnson and one of my heroes growing up, Gene Romero, who was one of the baddest flat-track racers in history. Should be a great time. Then we are gonna all travel in the coach to Vegas and get it parked at the track. I know our kids are looking forward to the time they get to spend with some of the other racers’ kids at the track during the weekend.

Our good friends from Palmer Electric have a suite at the Las Vegas track and Neise Palmer always has the suite painted like the colors of my race car, and it is one of the best places to watch a drag race, for sure.

I just talked to “Ace” and we should get delivery of our new Murf chassis in a couple of weeks. We have been running the chassis that we ran most of last year which had the “band-aid” changes made after Force’s accident, so with the new thicker tubing, the stiffer, safer chassis I think is going to help us pick up a little performance as well.

Before I step away from the keyboard, I want to thank all the NAPA people who were in Houston last weekend. Every race we have had over 130 NAPA people in our hospitality area and every Sunday morning I am reminded why NAPA is such a great place to shop. The people working for NAPA are some of the best people I have been around and I look forward to the group in Vegas.

Talk to you next week.
RC