NHRA 2015 Dodge Charger Returns to Winning Ways

The 2015 Dodge Charger has a sleek new look so when the Mopar team rolled out the 2015 Charger NHRA funny car body, it also had some revisions in the shape. As a result, the 2015 Dodge Charger body is more slippery than the outgoing body and when combined with the 10,000 horsepower supercharged Hemi engine, the Charger have dominated the first events of the 2015 NHRA drag racing season. Aside from the race in Las Vegas, Chargers had won 4 of the 5 events coming into this past weekend’s race in Texas and when the Charger funny cars hit the track in the Lone Star State – they were ready to dominate yet another event.

Qualifying Bring a Record
The 2015 Dodge Charger teams didn’t get off to a great start in the first round of qualifying for the O’Reilly Auto Parts Spring Nationals, with Matt Hagan being the quickest after round one – sitting in the 6th spot behind five Camrys and a Camaro. Capps was 9th after round 1, Jack Beckman was 10th, John Hale was 12th and Tommy Johnson Jr was 15th.

In round 2, things went very differently for the 2015 Charger teams and the good news for Dodge fans started when Jack Beckman ran a stunning 3.988 at 318.17 miles per hour – marking the first 3-second run by a funny car at Royal Purple Raceway. This put Beckman in the top spot after round 2, with Capps moving up to 3rd, Johnson Jr moving up to 8th and Hale moved up to 11th while Hagan remained in 6th.

Due to the many quick times turned by Charger drivers in round two, none of the times in the 3rd or 4th rounds of qualifying improved their starting ladder positions.

Eliminations
In round 1, top qualifier Jack Beckman and his Dodge Charger took a starting line advantage and turned it into a beating up Terry Haddock, while Tommy Johnson Jr beat Crus Pedregon in the same manner. Ron Capps took his NAPA Charger against the 2014 Charger of John Hale in round 1 and the newer Dodge body took the win and Matt Hagan put down the fastest run of the day (320.81mph) to beat Tony Pedregon. All four of the 2015 Dodge Charger funny car teams advanced into round 2, but they all met head to head in pairs.

First up in round 2, Jack Beckman took on Tommy Johnson Jr and although Johnson took the starting line advantage, he ran into traction issues and Beckman blasted to another round win. Ron Capps then had a great drag race with teammate Matt Hagan, starting with near identical reaction times and ending with Capps pulling the quickest run of the round. In the other side of the bracket, Courtney Force and her Camaro beat Alexis DeJoria’s Camry while Robert Hight beat Camaro driving teammate John Force to head into the final four.

In the final four, Jack Beckman and his 2015 Dodge Charger took on Courtney Force and her 2015 Chevrolet Camaro. Beckman pulled the hole shot and turned the quicker time to take the win. In the other matchup, Ron Capps was 1 thousandth of a second quicker off of the starting line than Robert Hight and when the two cars turned identical 4.084 elapsed times, that minimal starting line lead gave Capps the win. It was an amazing drag race…especially for Mopar fans.

In the finals, there were 2 2015 Dodge Charger funny cars battling head to head for the win for the third time in six events this season. Fast qualifier Jack Beckman lined up next to 3rd place qualifier Ron Capps and when the green lights dropped, Capps jumped out to a strong starting line advantage and he never looked back – beating Beckman by more than 2 tenths of a second when both cars ran into issues on the top end.

This was the second win of the year for Ron Capps and the fifth win of the year for Don Schumacher Racing.

Season Championship Standings
After his second win of the season, Ron Capps now sits atop the championship leaderboard with 431 points. Matt Hagan is 2nd, 6 points back and Del Worsham is in 3rd, 30 points out of 1st.