Not winning a title isn’t funny to Ron Capps

Funny car driver Ron Capps is a familiar face to many drag racing fans because of his funny television commercials with NASCAR driver Michael Waltrip.

But when it comes to winning championships, Capps would seem more closely aligned with NASCAR’s Mark Martin.

Just as Martin has been a runner-up five times in his quest for the NASCAR Sprint Cup title, Capps has been the bridesmaid in the NHRA funny car championship three times -- leaving him with a reputation as perhaps the best funny car driver never to have captured a title.

“To be honest with you, I don’t think there’s a day that doesn’t go by that I don’t think about how I could be a champion,” Capps said Wednesday.

But Capps is undaunted, and the Carlsbad driver will start another campaign for a National Hot Rod Assn. Full Throttle Series crown this weekend at the 50th Winternationals at Auto Club Raceway in Pomona.

Three days of qualifying for all of the NHRA’s classes start Thursday with the final eliminations Sunday.

Capps, 44, is the defending winner of the season-opening Winternationals. In fact, he won the first two races last year for the team of Don Schumacher Racing on his way to winning a series-high five overall, and he led the point standings through the first 10 races.

But Capps saw the championship slip away in the second half of the season as Robert Hight claimed the title and Ashley Force Hood, Hight’s teammate at John Force Racing, finished second. Capps was third.

Capps acknowledged that after his team qualified for the late-season playoff series, the Countdown to One, it started tinkering with the car to seek an edge -- and the changes probably backfired.

“We figured everyone is going to catch up to what we’re doing,” he said. “It’s almost like you feel a need to figure out a way to run better, but it almost hurts you.

“Had we left everything the same, I guarantee you we would have had three or four or maybe five more wins.”

A driver in the NHRA’s funny car class since 1997, Capps said “it sounds cliché to say we need to keep our consistency up, but that’s what you have to do.

“I don’t care how good you are in the regular season . . . when the playoffs start you better have some race wins or you’re not going to be a champion.”

Welcome change

Weather for the Winternationals is expected to be much better than a year ago, when rain disrupted qualifying and delayed final eliminations for two days.

Forecasts call for mostly sunny skies with highs reaching the mid-70s.

The Winternationals typically produce some of the season’s best racing because the area’s February weather conditions and dense air allow dragsters to burn more fuel and generate more power, said top-fuel driver and Capps teammate Antron Brown.

“This is like optimum conditions,” he said. “When the barometric pressure is really high, you make a lot of horsepower, and the track is tight and firm [from the winter] and we run really well.”

james.peltz@latimes.com