{"id":23467,"date":"2016-06-08T02:13:08","date_gmt":"2016-06-08T02:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/?p=23467"},"modified":"2016-06-08T02:17:27","modified_gmt":"2016-06-08T02:17:27","slug":"brown-capps-anderson-earn-epping-titles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/front-page-news\/brown-capps-anderson-earn-epping-titles\/","title":{"rendered":"Brown, Capps, Anderson Earn Epping Titles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-large wp-image-23473\" src=\"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/montease2-500x333.jpg\" alt=\"montease2\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" \/>Antron Brown raced to his second Top Fuel victory of the season Monday at the rain-delayed NHRA New England Nationals at New England Dragway.<\/p>\n<p>Ron Capps (Funny Car) and Greg Anderson (Pro Stock) also were winners of the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series event near Boston.<\/p>\n<p>Brown closed the gap on series points leader Doug Kalitta with a convincing victory over rival Steve Torrence in the final round. Brown powered his Matco Tools dragster to a winning performance of 3.769 seconds at 314.61 mph to hold off Torrence\u2019s Capco Contractors machine, which trailed with a 3.778 at 325.30, in a very close finish.<\/p>\n<p>Antron Brown<\/p>\n<p>It was Brown\u2019s 56th career win and his first at New England Dragway. He earned an opening-round bye as the No. 1 qualifier and then defeated Shawn Langdon and Tony Schumacher to advance to his fourth final-round appearance of the season. With the victory, Brown cut Kalitta\u2019s lead from 95 to 46 points.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nhra.com\/multimedia\/VideoPreview.aspx?mediaId=s5l8wQDE\" width=\"480\" height=\"270\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"auto\" align=\"right\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe>\u201cThe car ran great all weekend,\u201d said Brown, who is now 18-1 in head-to-head meetings versus Torrence. \u201cWe were fortunate to get the win. That Capco team over there is no joke. Steve is a real tough competitor, and we like racing against those guys because you know they are going to give you a great race every time. We\u2019re going home to Englishtown this weekend, and we are ready for it. We\u2019ve got to keep pushing.\u201d<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Ron Capps<br \/>\nCapps scored his second win of the season, second at this event, and 47th of his career by outrunning Tommy Johnson Jr. in the Funny Car final. In a battle between Dodge Chargers, Capps finished in 3.923 at 325.61 in his NAPA Auto Parts machine, just ahead of Johnson\u2019s 3.947 at 322.11 in his Make-A-Wish Funny Car.<\/p>\n<p>Capps NAPA Dodge was quick all weekend. He took the No. 1 qualifying position and then used a consistently quick string of 3.9-second runs during eliminations to claim round-wins over Dave Richards, Courtney Force, and John Force en route to the final round.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am proud of crew chief Rahn Tobler this weekend; he let it all hang out,\u201d Capps said. \u201cTo be low e.t. and win the race and to win here twice is cool. How about the fans that showed up today, who cut work and cut school to see some of the racing they saw today, you won\u2019t see that every weekend. There were some nail-biters out there, including that final round. It was a fun day. We knocked off some big cars today and made a big jump in the points. I am proud of Tobler and the whole team.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Capps, a self-described Funny Car junkie, said winning this event during two significant golden anniversary celebrations is one he will always cherish.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI love coming here,\u201d said Capps, who with the victory moved from sixth to third in the series points standings. \u201cAs a kid, I remember reading about this place in National Dragster magazine. It\u2019s been a dream to win here for the second time. It\u2019s huge. There\u2019s so many old-school Funny Cars here on display this weekend. To be the guy that wins New England Dragway during the 50th anniversary of Funny Car is only fitting because I love \u2019em. I love the nostalgia series. I love driving them. I feel like I was born 25 years too late.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Greg Anderson<br \/>\nIn Pro Stock, Anderson claimed his fourth win of the season and second straight at this event when he sped past final-round opponent Allen Johnson. Anderson covered the distance in 6.598 at 210.44 in his Summit Racing Equipment Chevy Camaro to hold off Johnson\u2019s charging Marathon Petroleum Dodge Dart, which left the starting line first but finished second with a 6.673 at 208.71. It is the ninth straight final-round appearance of the season for Anderson and series leader Jason Line\u2019s KB Racing team and Anderson\u2019s 82nd career victory.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s been a great start to the year,\u201d said Anderson, who defeated V. Gaines, Alex Laughlin, and Line in early rounds. \u201cThis team is on fire. It\u2019s a dream to drive that race car. I love racing here. It feels like racing back home in Minnesota. I had the best car on the grounds this weekend and only I could\u2019ve screwed it up, and fortunately, I got the job done today.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series continues June 9-12 with the NHRA Summernationals at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park in Englishtown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Antron Brown raced to his second Top Fuel victory of the season Monday at the rain-delayed NHRA New England Nationals at New England Dragway. Ron [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"publish_to_discourse":"","publish_post_category":"","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-front-page-news","category-race-results"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23467"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23474,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23467\/revisions\/23474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}