Mon, 14 Oct 2002, 09:11 AM Notes from the O’Reilly Fall Nationals

Courtesy of Keith Burgan

ENNIS, Texas -- Ron Capps may have been a first round loser here but undoubtedly he will be the star of highlight reels for the next week after his spectacular explosion. Capps was racing teammate Tommy Johnson Jr when the Skoal "Green" Camaro dropped an intake valve to precipitate the worst funny car incident of the season. When the valve dropped it allowed the ignition to spark an explosion in the intake manifold that took the blower right off the top of the motor while also breaking the manifold into several large pieces.

That blast was so violent that it shattered the body and blew the "dash" panel into Capps lap, clouting his legs in the process. A major portion of the car's roof with the left side window still attached was also draped over Capps as it hung off the left side of the chassis so Ron was driving blind and unable to reach the brake lever due to the debris piled up in front of him. Luckily the chutes had deployed with the body broke up and the car slowed considerably before it kissed the left side wall and was deflected back into the middle of the track where it came to rest.

The car, or what was left of it, slid to a halt adjacent to one of the access points in the wall so the Safety Safari was quickly on the scene, tearing away the remains of the body to assist Capps. After packing his bruised lower legs in ice for the rest of the afternoon Capps flew home that evening in team owner Don Prudhomme's private jet, assured by his crew that the chassis was not suffering major damage and thus would be ready for the next event in Las Vegas.

In other news from the Snake Racing camp it was announced here that Mike Green would be returning to head up the Skoal "Blue" team next year. Prudhomme dumped Green following the season opening Winternationals when Green made attempts to diverge from the tune-up implemented by Ed "The Ace" McCulloch for both cars. Larry Meyer was hired to replace Green, but by mid-season Prudhomme had added Rob Flynn as crew chief for the Tommy Johnson driven car while retaining Meyer as a consultant.

Green took over the tuning for the struggling NY Yankees dragster and has turned that operation around with the help of Tommy DeLago who was his assistant at Prudhomme's team. DeLago is also returning to Snake Racing with Green so I guess that you can go home again. Evidently Green will be allowed to implement his own parts and tuning strategy this time around in an attempt to generate the power that the Skoal cars appear to be lacking this year. Flynn and Meyer are both looking for jobs for next year.

Mopar dropped a bombshell this week with the announcement that David Nickens would no longer be fielding the "factory" Dodges. Nickens has been instrumental in the development of the new Hemi engine and has had the "Dodge Boys" driving his cars since taking over the factory deal from Dale Eicke. Darrell Alderman has been the constant in the factory driver package and over the years has been paired with Scott Geoffrion, Mark Osborne and most recently Gene Wilson. With the new approach for 2003 the driver package will evidently be split with Alderman going to Larry Morgan's team and Wilson to Allen Johnson's operation. Morgan has been running a single car lately but Wilson's move will obviously put Tom Lee out of the second Johnson car.

Alderman's recent qualifying travails which Nickens attributed directly to former crew chief Rickie Smith's preoccupation with his Pro Mod car may have been at the root of the decision to switch, but with Nickens being the primary source of power for most of the independent Mpoar teams the decision to pull the backing has a lot of people talking. The move is also a vindication for Johnson who had possibly the best Dodge package when the deal originally went to Nickens, but was cut off from any factory support at that time. Allen and his father Roy were the last to get Hemi pieces, but have regularly made the show with one or both entries and often been the quickest of the Dodges.

With the season winding down announcements are rife of 2003 plans. Doug Herbert has renewed his deal with Snap-On Tools for a further three years and on Tuesday Fram/Prestolite will announce a contract renewal with Rhonda Hartman-Smith. Currently hoping to sign a deal is the Henkleman/Baca team who bannered Arlington, Texas based Berryman Products' B-12 Chemtooler on the Cory McClenathan driven dragster here. McClenathan reached the final round, but smoked the tires against the currently very hot Doug Kalitta.

With Cruz Pedregon missing the cut here chances are that Bob Brooks tenure with the team may be limited. Pedregon and the Fasching family who tuned and prepared the car from the start of the season parted ways following the Memphis race, but Pedregon is still spectating on race day.

When John Force lost in round two here Tony Pedregon, who had qualified on the pole yet again, had a chance to take over the points lead, but he too stumbled and left the Texas Motorplex just 15 points in arrears of his boss. Del Worsham’s event victory vaulted him past Gary Densham to break the Force operation’s lock on the top three spots. Densham’s semi final loss meant that for the first time since the Columbus race in mid June there was not at least one Force entry in the final round.

In more team Castrol news Force tested at the wheel of Tony Pedregon's car following the Chicago event. Pedregon's car is unique in the Force camp in that it features a McKinney chassis rather than the Pleuger units that have been a staple of Forces team for many years. Although Pedregon has been on a tear lately Force had low elapsed time of eliminations at 4.816 and following the run commented that there was nothing wrong with the Pleuger unit.

Although the track conditions on race day did not particularly suit the majority of the Pro Stock brigade several big numbers came up on the board during eliminations. Kurt Johnson ran the second and third best speeds for the category at 204.03 and 203.94, but his track record 6.785 came up on the losing end of a Gene Wilson holeshot in the semi final. K.J. did not have a bad light at 0.438, but Wilson had a stellar 0.419 and took the win by just 0.0017 seconds or about 6” at 200 plus mph.

As at Chicago, apart from the Georgia Johnsons, the only two car team to put both entries in the show was that of Steve Schmidt. Brad Jeter qualified fourth in the Cavalier while Schmidt himself steered the Grand Am usually driven by Mark Osborne to the final place in the field. Qualifying sixteenth in the show gave Schmidt a first round meeting with Ron Krisher and in a bizarre train of events Schmidt got a free ride to the second round.

Krisher appeared to have exhausted his stock of ways to lose with red lights, late lights and out of shape passes, but this was a new one. When the car was intially fired it was leaking fluid and the crew had to remove the front clip to fix the problem. With Schmidt having already completed his burnout starter Rick Stewart indicated to Krisher that he should make a short burnout and stage. The Eagle One backed shoe proceeded to do a normal across the line smoker and when he backed up Stewart sent the already staged Schmidt on his way.

While Johnny Gray utilized the Havoline body on his Checker/ Schuck's/ Kragen entry for the last time this year Jim Dunn had an addition to his Frank Pedregon driven K & N Filters Pontiac as Speed Freaks decals adorned the hood and rear window. Speed Freaks is a syndicated radio show that features motorsports news and personalities in a usually irreverent manner.

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