Ron Capps
“I used to say, no, it didn’t matter, and I didn’t care. MPH didn’t win races, which it doesn’t. I never worried, but I also never ran big speed. Historically, if you look at my crew chiefs when I started in Funny Cars, Roland Leong was my first real crew chief in Funny Car for Don Prudhomme. I’ve had Ed ‘The Ace’ McCulloch, Rahn Tobler, I had John Medlen for a little while. These were guys who didn’t care about running huge speed. I’ve never been up on the charts as far as speed and we didn’t care.
“I’ve won a lot of races and I’ve got a lot of trophies at home thanks to a lot of these crew chiefs. To me, it’s like ‘Days of Thunder ‘when Robert Duvall came out of retirement. My crew chiefs are wear it on your sleeve, old-school kind of crew chiefs. Racers. They’re not even tuners, they’re racers. I love driving for racers. The approach has always been go out and win rounds, win races and let those big numbers fly. But, when we ran them (the big numbers), it was kind of cool. We were talking about doing a T-shirt and I was like, ‘Wow, it is kind of cool running big speed.’”
John Force
“I don’t know how the other drivers look at it. It’s all about ego, but I like those big numbers for my ego. It always helps. Brittany (Force) set the Top Fuel quickest run in history at Reading. Prime conditions, you know, the car was good. You want to go for it.
“It’s like dating the best girl in the house, I have that too. There are so many guys that can run big speeds. Capps ran so fast at one of the races, Indy or somewhere, nobody wanted to believe it. All I believe is what comes up on the scoreboard, I don’t care how you get there. They’re trying to slow us down, for safety, for cost, shorter race tracks. You’ll never slow a drag racer down. We’re about E.T. and we’re about speed. We’ll find a way. That’s what the crew chiefs are paid for.”
Carson Macedo
“It doesn’t really matter to me, as long as the track is racy. You don’t want to be going slow, but at the same time, as long as the track is racy and there’s lots of passing and the track is technical enough to where you do have to slow down to hit your marks and make speed … I think that’s the main thing.
“When the track’s just one lane or hard to pass, it makes it not as exciting for the fans and not as exciting for us as racers either. It makes it harder to get through the field if you happen to have to start in the back, if you have a bad night early or whatever the case might be. But as long as it’s racy, I think that’s our main concern as racers.”
Dominic Scelzi
“I don’t get my thrills from speed. I think the faster you’re going, a lot of times it makes the racing a little bit worse and makes it more difficult to pass. So I like it when it’s really blown off, slowed down and real wide. I think it creates a lot more excitement for the fans. But I also do know that new track records and stuff like that is something that brings fans and brings the excitement. Seeing cars go 130 mph in a circle, it’s pretty exciting. For me though, I think that when you get the race track slowed down, it makes it a little bit more exciting.
“If I want to get a speed thrill, I like watching drag racing. I think that might be just in my blood. But you know, watching a Top Fuel car hit the gas, it just rips the earth apart. It’s something that I absolutely love to pieces, being able to see that. But when I want my dirt-racing fix, I definitely want something that’s a little more slowed down, something more methodical. I like the guy that can think and manipulate his race car a little bit more than the next guy to win the races. That’s where I feel my love for dirt-track racing comes.
“When it comes to speed on a dirt track, I guess the short answer is I like it a little more technical, but when it is fast, I’m hoping it’s a little boring. That way it looks like jets in a gymnasium.”
Gio Scelzi
“What’s unique about dirt racing is that you can have a good race at a half- mile where you’re going 140 (mph) or a quarter-mile where you’re going 70 mph. I think that’s what’s special about it. And then there’s drag racing, where you have guys that race at 330 mph. Just different kinds of racing look at it in different ways.
“It’s funny, you know? I think drag racing is crazy and drag racers think I’m crazy for doing this. It goes both ways, but I think speed is very good for the sport. At the end of the day, though, winning is all I really care about.”