NHRA Kurt Johnson Race Wrap Up: KJ Sees Red in Reading Semifinals

 

Event:  21st Annual Toyo Tires Nationals 

Day/Date: Sunday, September 18, 2005

Location:  Maple Grove Raceway, Reading, PA

 

Three thousandths of a second is an almost immeasurable amount of time,
barely imperceptible to the human eye.  Unfortunately, during Sunday's
final eliminations of the Toyo Tires NHRA Nationals in Reading, PA, it
only took three thousandths for Kurt Johnson's competitive day to come
to an end.

 

After qualifying third, the ACDelco Cobalt Racing team continued to
display the consistent performance that had powered them to second place
in the POWERade championship standings.  In the first round, KJ bettered
his best qualifying time and speed, using a 6.700-second, 205.44 mph
pass to eliminate V. Gaines.  In the quarter-finals, he used the second
quickest pass of the round at 6.714-seconds to gain the win over his
father, Warren Johnson, and advance to the semi-finals for twelfth time
this season.

 

Standing between Johnson and his 61st career final round was rival Greg
Anderson.  Racing without lane choice, Johnson knew he would need to
gain every advantage in order to advance, and rolled to the line looking
to get the jump at the start.  Unfortunately, Johnson's reactions proved
to be too quick, as he left the line three thousandths of a second too
early, handing the automatic win to his opponent.  

.  

"The way the sun is at Maple Grove Raceway, there's a lot of glare, and
it's really bright behind the tree, especially in the left hand lane,
which is where we were all day.  By the time we ran the semifinals, it
was 3:30 in the afternoon, and the sun had changed position, so it was
now dark behind the tree, letting you really focus on the top bulb.

 

"I knew I had every bit of it, and just ended up three thousandths on
the wrong side of the line.  It could have been a perfect light, but it
just wasn't.  In the end, it didn't matter because we had transmission
problems with it not going into second gear.  On a positive note, since
we went to manually-shifted transmissions in 1999, this has only
happened twice, so the odds of its happening again in the next three
years are pretty slim.  

 

"Certainly, we would have liked to have gotten that round, but we're not
about to give up.  We've got a fast ACDelco Cobalt, and a great team
behind it, so we'll go on to Dallas, and keep pecking away at it."