NHRA needs consistently-applied tech regs

Last weekend the NHRA completed a four-races-in-four-weeks march through northeast and central United States, visiting New Hampshire, New Jersey, Tennessee and Ohio on consecutive weekends. It was a grueling pace for the Mello Yello Drag Racing Series regulars as they ended the first half of a 24-race season.

One thing is abundantly clear as teams, drivers and officials take a deserved one-weekend break from action: Ron Capps, along with tuners Rahn Tobler and Eric Lane, has the hottest Funny Car of the bunch right now. In more ways than one.

Capps has four victories in 12 starts, claiming his latest at Norwalk, Ohio. Capps, who has been racing in the NHRA’s premier flopper class over the past two decades, now holds 49 nitro NHRA victories, tying him with the legendary Snake, Don Prudhomme for 11th on the all-time list.

But the victory wasn’t without controversy for Capps, whose Dodge qualified second behind reigning champion and Toyota racer Del Worsham in the flopper class. On his third pass of the qualifying sessions, where the racer born in San Luis Obispo, Calif. set the quickest, second-best, quickest and quickest times in four passes, NHRA disallowed the third run and denied Capps and his NAPA team from the Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) stable the three points for leading all drivers in that session.

The rationale behind this disqualification of the third run was Capps’ use of a horizontally mounted thin metal plate between the swept-back headers on both sides of his carbonfiber Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car body and the body itself.

“The same plate was used in the third qualifying session two weeks ago at the NHRA event at Englishtown, N.J., but passed NHRA post-run inspection,” the team stated in its opposition to this ruling. DSR said the metal plate was used to deflect heat that was melting NAPA decals on each side of the car body.

At Norwalk, an NHRA official - who had conceivably passed the plate in New Jersey - said the device enhanced the aerodynamic qualities of the car and gave an advantage to Capps’ car. Yet as DSR pointed out, ironically – or coincidentally – in every session they’ve used the plate, it’s been the team’s slowest run of each weekend.

Many teams are using similar swept-back headers and others have noted difficulties with the same heat and melt issue, but they’ve managed to overcome them without resorting to the use of a horizontal metal plate. Of course those teams are running cars that have a different configuration from the DSR Dodge Charger R/T.

NHRA changed the rules about body width before the series went to zMax Dragway outside Charlotte, N.C. in April, designating a maximum width - including exhaust headers - of 79 inches. It’s possible (without measuring these items in person) that new ruling made it more difficult for the Dodge body to deflect the header heat, leading to the problems currently encountered by all of DSR’s quartet of Funny Cars, in particular the current points leader, Capps.

The ruling didn’t make a difference in last week’s outcome at Norwalk, but the most bothersome part of this penalty is the fact that the metal plate affixed to the headers of Capps’ NAPA Dodge were OK one week and outside the regs another. That kind of sanctioning body flip-flop doesn’t belong in professional motorsports.

Perhaps NHRA will realize that it made an error and enact definitive instructions prior to next weekend’s K&N Nationals at the Route 66 dragstrip outside Joliet, Illinois.