Capps No. 11 in Topeka Funny Car field

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
2005 NHRA POWERade DRAG RACING SERIES
Round 9 of 23
O'REILLY NHRA SUMMER NATIONALS
HEARTLAND PARK TOPEKA, Kan.
Race Dates: May 27-29, 2005


TOPEKA, Kan. (May 28, 2005) - Ron Capps and the Brut Dodge Stratus Funny Car
team made two of four good runs in qualifying for the O'Reilly NHRA Summer
Nationals at Heartland Park Topeka, taking the No. 11 spot after the
completion of all rounds.

Capps clocked a sixth-place 4.878/314.75 lap in the first session and a
4.983/259.06 in the third. But a tire-smoking 11.493/76.90 in the night
session and an 11.519/77.47 in the final round knocked him down to No. 11.

"Obviously the late session on Friday is where the conditions exist to run
your best and we pulled the tires lose to try to run a low 4.70," he said.
"Today the crew chiefs were pretty much thrown a lot of weird conditions. It
was real hot out, but then a lot of cloud cover came in and it really cooled
off.

"We didn't qualify where we wanted to, but, as I've said before, anytime
it's Sunday morning and we're getting ready to fire up the Brut Dodge on the
starting line, I have Ace (crew chief Ed McCulloch) in front me, as well as
(co-crew chief Dan) Olson and the guys, I always feel like we have a shot.

"Unfortunately, we race our teammate Whit Bazemore in the first round. We'll
just go up there and race the race track and forget that he's beside us and
see what happens."