Capps takes No. 12 in Gainesville qualifying

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
2005 NHRA POWERade DRAG RACING SERIES
Round 3 of 23
36TH ANNUAL NHRA GATORNATIONALS
GAINESVILLE (Fla.) RACEWAY
Race Dates: March 18-20, 2005



GAINESVILLE, Fla. (March 19, 2005) - Ron Capps and the Brut Dodge Funny Car
team, along with just about every other NHRA POWERade Drag Racing series
competitor, had a tough time qualifying this weekend at the NHRA
Gatornationals, as temperatures dropped into the 40s on Friday and warmed
only to the 60s today for final qualifying.

Capps was a non-qualifier in the first round on Friday, then posted a
one-pedal 4.902/321.65 pass on Friday evening, the fourth quickest pass of
that round. In today's third round he ran a 4.945/38.11, which was followed
by a 5.131/227.38 in the final session, placing him in No. 12.

"It's been a strange weekend," said Capps who, along with teammates Gary
Scelzi and Whit Bazemore, has never won the Gatornationals. "Weekends like
this are true tests for crew chiefs and every crew chief out here who
qualified did a heck of a job to just get into the show.

"We had conditions on Friday that were so cool. It's something we hadn't
seen, and probably won't see again as far as track temperatures are
concerned, which barely reached 60 degrees. Then to have the sun come out on
Saturday and have two completely different scenarios was certainly a
challenge. And Sunday is going to pose an even different scenario from the
first two days.

"Ace (crew chief Ed McCulloch) and (co-crew chief Dan) Olson did a great
job. We got in on Friday night's run and that ended up being the run that
stayed in. And I was on a great run the last session but we had an O-ring
that blew out on the fuel pump, so we were kind of lucky that the thing
didn't catch fire, to be honest with you. We feel like that was our lucky
break of the weekend right there."

Capps will meet his Don Schumacher Racing teammate Gary Scelzi in the first
round of eliminations on Sunday. "All these guys are tough, anyone who made
the show is tough," he said. "And we have Scelzi in the first round, and of
course we all know how good that car can run with Zippy (Scelzi's crew chief
Mike Neff) over there.

"I knew coming in we would have a tough time all year and we would have to
run our teammates. That's just part of it. We're going to go up there and
give it our best shot."