Johnson Collects Provisional No. 1 Qualifier
Mopar Motorsports NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series Lucas Oil Products NHRA Nationals Route 66 Raceway Joliet, Ill. Qualifying Notes & Quotes Allen Johnson Grabs Provisional Number One Could Be a First for the Tennessee Resident JOLIET, Ill. (May 30, 2003) Mopar¹s Allen Johnson has grabbed the provisional No. 1 position after the first day of qualifying for this weekend¹s Lucas Oil Products NHRA Nationals at Route 66 Raceway. Johnson, 43, has never collected the top spot in qualifying, but his Hemi-powered Dodge Neon R/T drove through the traps with a 6.824-second elapsed time at 201.94 mph. His speed is also number one thus far. ³I feels real good about our runs today,² Johnson said. ³It¹s the first time I¹ve ever led qualifying after the first day. Weather is supposed to change for tomorrow so we¹re going to see if we can hang on. But we¹ll take it for now. ³Both runs were awesome and were at the top of the qualifying page,² Johnson added. ³The engine is really accelerating well this weekend. It¹s such a great race track and that¹s why you¹re seeing the great times. I think these Hemi engines will run well in any conditions and it¹s just been a matter of learning how to tune them. We ran on Monday out in Topeka (Kan.) and it was really fast then. Unfortunately that didn¹t count.² The Greeneville, Tenn., resident made a final-round appearance at the season-opening Winternationals at Pomona (Calif.) Raceway. Johnson joined Mopar¹s factory program at the beginning of the 2003 NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series season and is going after a third career national event victory. A factory Mopar car also picked up the No. 1 qualifier the last time the NHRA visited Route 66 Raceway, as 2002 Rookie of the Year Gene Wilson nabbed his first-career top qualifier last fall. Teammate Darrell Alderman, a three-time POWERade Pro Stock World Champion, didn¹t fare as well. The Morehead, Ky., resident is on the outside looking in after the first two sessions. He ran a 6.922-second elapsed 199.85 mph. ³We were just trying to get data on that second run,² said Alderman, who missed the first round of qualifying due to a broken wheelie bar. ³We¹re going to have to tune it up a little bit for tomorrow. The car didn¹t feel bad out there, but I think we¹ll lean it down a bit for the third session.² Wilson was positive about his second qualifying effort, despite not placing his Mopar Parts Dodge Stratus R/T into the top 16. The Georgia resident logged a 6.898-second elapsed time at 200.08 mph. ³We made an awesome run on that last one,² Wilson said. ³It felt really nice, unfortunately, it was done with the air pretty bad. It was three or four hundred feet worse than it was for the first run. It wasn¹t conducive to making a run good enough to get into the field. Nonetheless, we have the car where it needs to be. We¹re going to have some nice air tomorrow, so we think we can get into the show. We have a real good baseline for tomorrow and I feel real good.² Larry Morgan and his Mopar Parts Dodge Neon R/T were unable to make the top 16. His best pass of the weekend is at 6.912 seconds and 199.55 mph.