“I Love Him, But I Got Tired Of Hearing About Him”

ATLANTA, GEORGIA - The Southern Nationals at Atlanta Dragway saw Ron Capps end John Force Racing’s season Funny Car long winning streak. Running consistent 4.16 second runs all weekend, Capps went up against Force’s Robert Hight in the finals. Capps 4.166 s, 303.91 mph run was more than enough to beat Hight’s 4.399 s, 273.44 mph attempt at a win. “I got so tired of hearing about Force [Racing] winning every race,” said Capps, “ I love him, but I got tired of hearing about him on this race streak.”

In Top Fuel, Steve Torrence won his first career victory. Torrence went up against the formidable, seven-time world champion Tony Schumacher who has never won a race at Atlanta. Torrence, the number two qualifier, ran a 3.893 s, 320.66 mph blast taking out the US Army dragster aborted run of 4.913 s, 169.44. Schumacher had to get out of it after losing traction at the start. Torrence said of his first win “I’ve been practicing, and the seat time of just making passes in a good car has really helped me a lot. Getting this first win, it’s unbelievable. To do it here at Atlanta is awesome. This is a great racetrack. It just hasn’t caught up to me yet. Hopefully, this is the start of a lot of really good things.”

In Pro Stock, the Ken Black crew really made a statement by placing all three Summit cars in the semi-finals. In the end, Greg Anderson took on teammate and friend Jason Line with 6.649s, 208.26 mph run in his Summit Racing Pontiac to hold off the quicker, but losing, Summit Racing Pontiac of Line, which finished in 6.618 at 209.62. Anderson won it at the start line with an impressive 0.039 s reaction time compared with Line’s 0.081 s time. “It’s great to have three Summit cars in the semi's, quipped Anderson. “That doesn’t happen too often with multicar teams. It just tells you that everybody is rowing the boat in the same direction and pulling their load. That’s what I’m the most proud of — assembling this team and instilling in them that it doesn’t matter which driver wins. Anderson also made a moving comment about his team owner’s battle with cancer, “It all goes back to what Ken Black does for this team. We just want to dig harder and harder every day because that’s what he is doing, going to rehab, and trying to get back to walking, and he’s darn close. When you see that, you don’t want to let the man down. You want to make him proud. And when he gets back to the racetrack full time, we want our cars to be running at their best.”

In Pro Stock Motorcycle, Eddie Krawiec, outran first-time finalist Michael Ray. The Screamin’ Eagle Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson of Krawiec ran a 6.905s, 195.53mph to beat the GottSpeed Racing Buell of Ray, which finished in 7.036s, 187.94 mph. “We are just trying to get a handle on the motorcycle and working on getting it to leave well, and I think we did that this weekend,” Krawiec said. “It ran awesome, and I’ve got a killer motorcycle right now.”