Ron Capps Still Feels a Calling to Lend Hand to Aspiring NHRA Drag Racers—But Just Not Yet

• Duties of new team taking priority over his goals to “pass it forward”

• He says he’s keeping an eye on the Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series’ rising stars

• He plans to promote from within following co-crew chief John Medlen’s retirement

Ron Capps’ American Dream of reaching the elite level of drag racing is a theme of encouragement he wove into his speeches—both last December, when he announced the launch of his independent NHRA Funny Car team, and last Sunday, when he repeated his series championship.

And the NAPA Auto Care Toyota Supra owner-driver truly wants to extend a hand up to aspiring young drivers ... just not right now.

While many drag-racing operations—from smaller-budgeted Scott Palmer Racing to the medium-sized Tim Wilkerson team and independent Del Worsham’s DC Motorsports to well-heeled outfits such as Kalitta Motorsports—mentor new drivers, none formally has started a driver-development program.

“I was thinking about that 10-15 years ago,” Capps said of the concept.

While he has been thinking about it, IndyCar’s Ed Carpenter Racing earlier this month announced the formation of a driver-development program that features 16-year-old Oregon racer Josh Pierson. Several muti-series teams—including Andretti Autosport, Chip Ganassi Racing, and Penske Racing—are entrenched in the process. NASCAR operations such as Kyle Busch Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing, Richard Childress Racing, and David Gilliland Racing have seen the value of investing in the future. In Formula 1, the practice long has been a staple of sustainability.

Drag racing might be the only major motorsport that does not have teams with driver-development programs. The NHRA’s Lucas Oil Series isn’t billed as such, partly because a majority of the drivers don’t aspire to join the Camping World Drag Racing Series level that is composed of the Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Stock, and Pro Stock Motorcycle classes. Nevertheless, Capps has spoken repeatedly about giving a shot to one or two rising stars in the sport.

“I came up in a unique way,” Capps, 57, said. “I worked on these cars until I had a shot. I didn’t have big money, parents with sponsors. I didn’t have any of that. I knew I had to get a shot. I just needed a shot to get my license or get in a car. Luckily around the right people, my career took off, being in the right spots.”

So he understands that some of these younger faces—ones the NHRA desperately needs— could use an opportunity. Some of these sportsman-level racers he has observed. More are unknown to him. They’re the young Ron Cappses, not blessed as being a legacy driver or the daughter or son of a wealthy father and mother.

“Especially in the lower categories, there’s a lot of kids, a lot of young drivers, that will never get a shot who are probably two times more talented or more than I am and could be in a nitro Funny Car or dragster. So it’s always been something (to think about). Currently I watch those categories all the time. When you don’t see me in my pit area, I’m probably down, running around in the alcohol pits or the Super Comp’s, and seeing the people that I know and came up [with] in this sport,” Capps said.

And he celebrated 20-year-old Madison Payne’s first trophy, in the Top Alcohol Dragster class at Las Vegas last month as she defeated surprise class rookie Tony Stewart.

“Madison is a girl I watched grow up. That big moment for her was huge,” Capps said. And he only can imagine the same joy other ambitious racers could experience if he gave them that chance.

But reality has tempered Capps’ ambition in that department. The minutiae of managing his own fresh organization has presented him with an overpowering array of demanding tasks.

“It's been overwhelming this year. For me ... it’s been overwhelming,” Capps said in a Toyota-sponsored virtual conference call Wednesday . “I had to learn to get the business side out of my helmet. It cost me a few races I thought I probably should have won early in the season. It’s just been my wife (Shelley Capps) and I and Paul Mecca, our team manager, but basically my wife and I doing everything on the business side. And we had to learn it at the same time.”

He said, “The dream about being a small business owner or a race-car team owner, all of that is so true. I so have more respect—than I did already—for guys like Cruz Pedregon, Tim Wilkerson, people who have done it. Of course, John Force built an empire ... Connie Kalitta ... and Don Schumacher, what he’s done over the years.

“Yes,” he said, “my goal is someday to have a couple cars that I can give these younger drivers a chance. Don Prudhomme did that with me. But right now, I’m just not ready. Obviously, we have a great thing going, and I don’t want to dilute that.”

Crew chief Dean Antonelli said the same in a conversation with Autoweek during the penultimate race of the season. Both he and Capps are content, he said, with the status quo for now.

“I’m certainly open to it,” Capps said of a driver-development program. “I’ve had a lot of people approach me, wanting to bring money and other cars. And I’ve got to stay level-headed and keep what we have going. First and foremost, we’ve got to try to repeat, right? And I don’t want to dilute that too soon.”

His first step toward promoting young talent will come on the crew side rather than the driver side. Veteran crew chief John Medlen has retired. Medlen—who has worked for John Force Racing, Don Schumacher Racing, and has tuned Capps to the most recent two of his three championships—leaves a legacy of inexhaustible work on cockpit safety, with research prompted by the 2007 death of his son, Eric Medlen, following a Funny Car testing accident.

“John Medlen spearheaded more of the safety and where we’re at ... fast-forwarded our sport probably 20 years in safety around our heads. That’s first and foremost what he thinks about. Because of Eric Medlen’s accident, our cockpits got safer. He is instrumental in how safe all of us drivers are,” Capps said. “What’s cool is everybody on our team has learned so much from him. Anyone we move up is 100 times smarter in that area because of him, including myself.

“We’re going to bring in somebody to replace whoever we bring up. It’s going to be a lot of fun. I’m excited about that part,” he said.

But for the moment, somebody’s American Dream remains back in the sportsman pits.