NHRA notebook: Chris McGaha makes big impact in Pro Stock division

SONOMA - Chris McGaha isn’t the biggest name on the NHRA circuit, but the winner of the Pro Stock division at Sonoma Raceway on Sunday might have the biggest frame. McGaha is over 6 feet tall and weighs in at about 240 pounds. He’s a veritable giant compared to most auto racers.

“I am a bigger guy. It is harder for a car to be fit around me, because I am tall and I do weigh about 240 pounds,” he said. “You do have to balance the weight right with me. But it can get done.”

The massive power of an NHRA car, even a Pro Stock vehicle, makes the driver’s weight less of a factor than in, say, IndyCar racing. Still, McGaha acknowledged he once had a crew chief who asked him to lose weight.

“I told him I’d go back and race (the lower Competition Eliminator level) before I lose weight,” McGaha said. “Because we can drop a class over there. We can put more weight in the car and run a different class. So I told him he was out of luck.”

HATS OFF TO CAPPS

Funny Car driver Ron Capps became the 19th person, and the sixth NHRA driver, inducted onto Sonoma Raceway’s Wall of Fame on Sunday. Capps, a native of Carlsbad who graduated from Santa Clara University, won titles here in 1997, 2010, 2011 and 2013. Those are among his 45 career wins.

“I was in tears this morning, looking up at the names that are up on that thing,” Capps said. “To be even mentioned with ’em, same guys I’ve read about all my life, and to know that they’ve raced here and be planted on that wall is incredible.”

FOR RICHER OR POORER

Courtney Force and Graham Rahal will marry this fall, but they’re not yet traveling in lockstep. Rahal, who drives in the IndyCar series, won the Honda Indy 200 race at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio, on Sunday. Force, meanwhile, was eliminated in Sonoma before Rahal even got warmed up. She lost to Robert Hight in the first round of Funny Car racing.

Force, daughter of team owner John Force, had nothing to hang her head about. Her time of 4.081 seconds would have won five of the eight first-round races, but Hight got her by 29 thousandths of a second.

LANGDON CAN’T KNUCKLE UP

Sixty-four men and women competed in the Sonoma Nationals on Sunday, but only one of them drove a vehicle with a Sonoma County-inspired paint scheme. Top Fuel dragster pilot Shawn Langdon was in a car advertising Knuckle Sandwich, the brand of Santa Rosa restaurateur Guy Fieri.

Langdon and his crew chief, Alan Johnson, who used to be with the Al-Anabi team, are currently looking for a sponsor. Fieri isn’t sponsoring the ride, but has agreed to help them in their quest. The spiky-haired dude was at the drag strip Sunday, but he didn’t impart any golden touch on the car. Langdon lost to Larry Dixon in the first round.

STOP LENDING THOSE TOOLS

Dave Connolly is driving Top Fuel for the first time this season, and Sunday was his first appearance ever in a final. But Antron Brown, one of the top drivers on the Mello Yello circuit, wasn’t taking anything for granted in the last race of the day.

For one thing, Brown has a lot of respect for Connolly. For another, Brown knows that Connolly’s team, Bob Vandergriff Racing, buys all its automotive parts from his own, Don Schumacher Racing.

“And I’m looking at the boss man right now,” Brown said, glancing at Schumacher after the race. “I’m locking up our doors when the Countdown (to the Championship) comes. They’re gonna be out there begging, ‘Hey, hey, we need this.’ I’ll say, ‘You can’t have it.’ ”

FINAL POINTS

Six drivers clinched berths in the Countdown to the Championship: Tony Schumacher and Brown in Top Fuel, Matt Hagan in Funny Car, and Greg Anderson, Erica Enders and Jason Line in Pro Stock.

NHRA Funny Car drivers Tommie Johnson Jr. and Cruz Pedregon will attend Raiders training camp in Napa today, and are expected to meet players and coaches.

Pedregon is reputed to be a huge Raiders fan.