NHRA Warren Johnson Saturday Update: WJ Powers to No. 1 Qualifying Position in Las Vegas
WJ Powers to No. 1 Qualifying Position in Las Vegas Event: 6th Annual SummitRacing.com Nationals Day/Date: Saturday, April 16, 2005 Location: The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Las Vegas, NV Warren Johnson accomplished his first objective at the SummitRacing.com Nationals on Saturday, capturing the No. 1 qualifying position with a 6.824-second, 201.46 mph run on Friday evening. This was the 132nd top qualifying performance of WJ's career, second in as many weeks, and first at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. This gives 'The Professor" at least one "pole position" at each of the 20 tracks on the 2005 POWERade Drag Racing Series schedule. Although Saturday's warmer temperatures prevented any major changes in Sunday's starting line-up, Johnson used his final two attempts to fine tune his tuning combination for race day. This proved to be an effective technique, as he posted the quickest Pro Stock pass of the day at 6.858-seconds, 201.01 mph, giving him the quickest run in three of the four qualifying sessions and putting him in a good position from which to pursue consecutive national event wins. "I'd have to say we're pretty satisfied with our GM Performance Parts Pontiac's overall performance in qualifying," said Johnson. "We may not have gotten it exactly right on every run, but we were quickest in three of the four rounds and able to derive something from every pass, giving us the information we need to move forward. "Today, we tried to avert any potential problems for tomorrow by making a change this afternoon. We knew there was no chance of anyone running quicker than our 6.82, and realizing the conditions we encountered today should be fairly similar to what we'll face tomorrow, we tried something that we felt could help the car early in the run. "I guess you could say it was our version of NASCAR's happy hour. You have to keep in mind that this car is still relatively new, and we are still gathering tuning data on it. Even though it did not produce the number we wanted, we learned something from it, so it was a productive effort. "We've been to two finals here in the past, but have yet to capitalize on it. Hopefully, tomorrow will be a different story. We plan to attack it the same way we have the other four races this season. The warmer temperatures fit right into our game plan. We made the quickest run of the day in the heat on our first run, so we'll take that information and build on it." Some quick facts on Warren Johnson and the GM Performance Parts Racing team following their No. 1 qualifying performance in Las Vegas: * This is the 132nd No. 1 qualifying performance of WJ's career, which is the most by any professional driver in NHRA history (John Force is second with 124). * This is WJ's first No. 1 qualifying performance at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. * WJ has now been the No. 1 qualifier at 25 different tracks throughout his career, starting with the 1978 Columbus race * WJ's most recent No. 1 qualifying position came last week at the O'Reilly NHRA Spring Nationals in Houston, TX.. * 46 of WJ's 93 national event wins have come from the No. 1 starting position, including one week ago in Houston, TX. * This is the 14th time that WJ has qualified No. 1 in back-to-back races. The most recent time he accomplished this feat was at the 2003 Houston & Bristol races. * This is the second No. 1 qualifying performance for the DRCE III, the third generation General Motors Drag Racing Competition Engine. Warren and his son Kurt are the only competitors in Pro Stock currently running this engine.