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No. 1 Spot in Qualifying at Phoenix
Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) Dodge Charger R/T driven by Ron Capps earns No. 1 Qualifier position at National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Nationals near Phoenix
Defending title winner Matt Hagan qualifies tenth at Wild Horse Motorsports Park in Mopar Express Lane Dodge Charger R/T
Dodge Dart of Allen Johnson sits fourth on Pro Stock eliminations ladder to lead Mopar contingent of factory stock hot rodsJeg Coughlin Jr. and Erica Enders qualify their new Pro Stock Mopar vehicles eighth and ninth respectively
February 27, 2016 , Chandler, Arizona - To follow up his Winternationals title win at the opening race event of the 2016 National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Mello Yello Drag Racing series season, Ron Capps drove his Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) Dodge Charger R/T to the No. 1 Qualifier position for the NHRA Nationals near Phoenix at Wild Horse Motorsports Park.
Friday qualifying saw Capps and his DSR teammates Jack Beckman and Tommy Johnson Jr. all run in the 3-second range to sit second, third and fourth respectively at the end of the day. On Saturday, Capps bested the No. 2 qualifying position he earned at the Winternationals in Pomona by snagging the top spot in final qualifying with a 3.925 second run at 320.05 miles per hour (mph) at the Phoenix track for his tenth sub 4-second pass in 12 laps so far this season.
“I’ve been doing this awhile and you certainly don’t want to get cocky,” said Capps, who has 45 Funny Car national titles to his credit. “We’re not so naïve to think this is going to keep up. The competition is just too great out here. We’ll take the win and this was a great No. 1 qualifier, but everyone starts even on Sunday.”
Capps, who earned six bonus points in qualifying for his efforts, will see Jeff Diehl in the lane next to him for the first round of eliminations.
Also qualifying in the top half of the ladder is Beckman and his Infinite Hero Mopar after posting the sixth quickest run in qualifying at 3.959 seconds at 319.22 mph. He’ll have Alexis DeJoria as his first round opponent.
Johnson Jr. was close behind after taking his Make-A-Wish Dodge Charger R/T to a 3.965/318.77 lap for the seventh place spot to give him a first round pairing against his teammate and defending title winner Matt Hagan.
The Mopar Express Lane Funny Car had a best qualifying pass of 3.990/321.58 in the final session to put Hagan 10th overall after the team elected to switch back to its 2015 chassis for this weekend's event after a challenging start to their season thus far.
"We're behind the eight-ball, there's no doubt about that," Hagan said. "Obviously we want to run better than a 3.99 out here. The track is better than that and we're better than that but it is what it is. You have to adapt to it and tomorrow is a different day.
“We started last year so strong but you have to remind yourself that it's a new year and things change,” added Hagan who started the 2015 season with back-to-back wins. “It's easy to get down and be hard on yourself out here but I'd much rather be dominant at the end of the season and in the Countdown to the Championship than here at the start. We'll get it figured out and be in that fight at the finish."
In Pro Stock qualifying, Jeg Coughlin Jr. started the weekend off by taking his “Magneti Marelli Offered by Mopar” Dodge Dart GT to the fourth quickest run of the first session with a 6.664 second /207.18 mph lap. It was his best pass of the four sessions to put him eighth on the final qualifying sheets. The HEMI-powered Elite Motorsports driver will see Alex Laughlin in the lane next to him for the first round of eliminations.
“We’re definitely working through our new car and the new set up and we thought we’d be a bit further ahead by the close of qualifying than we ended up but it’s nothing we’re concerned about,” Coughlin said. “We’ve learned quite a bit through the four runs here, maybe more than we did at Pomona. We will be competitive for first round of eliminations.
“We want to win but we still have some work to do and we know what are goals were coming into the season starting this new program with Mopar so we’re still realistically approaching these first few races to get our feet on the ground with these new cars and balanced with the horsepower.”
Erica Enders had similar results as her Elite Motorsports teammate, finishing up her own qualifying efforts with the ninth quickest lap on the timing sheets at 6.689 sec./208.26 mph. While she isn’t happy about the way she has qualified her Mopar Performance Dodge Dart thus far this season, she feels that the team is making gains after a total of just 22 runs with all the changes that have been made in the category and with their engine program.
"We went home from Pomona, and the guys worked really hard in the engine shop," Enders said. "We certainly feel like we made moves in the right direction. We had the second-quickest mph yesterday, which is very encouraging, considering how new our Dodge engine program is.
"We made some significant changes with our race car, and it's just not happy right now," Enders said. "There's no other way to beat around the bush. Once we get our race car happy, things will be OK.”
“In the grand scheme of things, it could be easy to get frustrated because of how we're used to performing. But if we look at the big picture and consider everything we went through in the off-season, with all the rules changes and with building two new cars and a motor program, it's just going to take time. I keep telling people that. I'm very optimistic, very confident that things are going to get better."
Allen Johnson’s Marathon Petroleum Dodge Dart GT was the top Mopar in Pro Stock qualifying with the fourth quickest run at 6.649 seconds/207.11 mph and will have lane choice over Deric Kramer’ Dodge Dart for his first match up on race day. The fifth Mopar in the field, V. Gaines, is 14th and will battle the No. 1 qualifier, Bo Butner, who earned the top spot with his best lap at 6.618 sec./208.88 mph.
Qualifying coverage for the CARQUEST Auto Parts NHRA Nationals at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park near Phoenix, Arizona, the second of 24 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series events this season, will be broadcast by new television partner FOX Sports on Saturday, Feb. 27 at 10 p.m. (ET) along with a three hour eliminations broadcast including live finals is scheduled for Sunday, February 28 at 5 p.m. ET on FS1.
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