NHRA Saturday: Kurt Johnson Will Start from the Third Spot in Atlanta

Event: Twenty-third Annual Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Southern Nationals
	 Presented by Pontiac
Location:  Atlanta Dragway
       Commerce, GA
Day/Date: Saturday May 3, 2003 

Although the skies over Atlanta Dragway were overcast for most of Saturday, the final two qualifying sessions for the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Southern Nationals went as scheduled, with teams taking advantage of the improved conditions to produce wholesale changes in Sunday's Pro Stock line-up.   Among those stepping up in performance was local favorite Kurt Johnson, whose Sugar Hill, GA.-based ACDelco Cavalier continued to be among the quickest in the 33-car field. 

Current POWERade points leader Johnson's 6.840-second, 202.67-mph pass from the earlier session was his run of record, and placed him third on Sunday's final eliminations ladder.  However, the 6.844-second effort on his final attempt was equally impressive, as it was the best in Pro Stock for that session, and came with the sun shining on the race track.  

Johnson's pursuit of a third consecutive NHRA national event win will start with a first round encounter with Darrell Alderman.

"We originally thought we had a shot for the No. 1 spot, but when the sun came out, we felt it wouldn't be that good of a session, so we changed the carburetors, putting on a pair that had looked pretty promising on the dyno the other day.   They helped us to the sixty-foot mark, where we had been struggling, but it was a little off downtrack, so we'll look at our notes and see if we can't tune our ACDelco Cavalier up for tomorrow. 

"You're always happy when you're the quickest car, as we were in that last session.  We certainly have our work cut out for us, but this Chevy just keeps going down the race track, so we think we'll be pretty good tomorrow."