NHRA Saturday: A Productive Saturday Places Warren Johnson Fourth in Las Vegas

Event: Fifth annual SummitRacing.com Nationals
Location:  The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway
       Las Vegas, Nevada
Day/Date: Saturday April 3, 2004

With the number of qualifying sessions at the SummitRacing.com Nationals cut in half by Friday's rain showers, there was even less room for error for the 29 Pro Stock competitors attempting to make Sunday's final eliminations.  

As expected, Warren Johnson and the GM Performance Parts Racing team made the most of the opportunity, opening with a solid 6.874-second, 201.16 mph, and improving to a 6.864-second elapsed time on their final attempt.  This placed the GM Performance Parts Grand Am in the fourth position for Sunday's final eliminations at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

"We were actually surprised at how good the surface was today, because we had rain here a few years ago, and when we finally ran  there was no race track to speak of.  Obviously, it's been worked on since then, as today's results show..  

"We changed a few things around on our GM Performance Parts Grand Am before this race, and it went straighter than it has all year long.  On the first run, we didn't want to go over the edge to the point of shaking the tires and having to abort the run, so we were a little cautious, which caused us to be a little off in the first sixty feet. 

"We made some adjustments for the second session, and picked up a hundredth.  Right now, it's still just a little too tight, so we'll loosen it up for tomorrow, and we'll be fine."