NHRA Sunday: Despite his perfect timing, KJ's day ends in the
semifinals in Sonoma
Event: 16th annual NHRA Nationals
Location: Infineon Raceway
Sonoma, CA
Day/Date: Sunday August 3, 2003
After qualifying 13th on his final attempt, Kurt Johnson knew he faced an uphill battle in Sunday's final eliminations at Infineon Raceway. Opening against his father, six-time Pro Stock champion Warren Johnson in the first round, K.J. knew he would need every advantage he could muster in order to advance to the second round. Combining a solid .045-second reaction time with a 6.807-second, 203.09 mph pass, the ACDelco Cavalier driver was able to score the narrow hole-shot victory.
In the second round, Johnson eliminated former teammate and close friend Scott Geoffrion to advance to the semi-finals for the eighth time this season. Standing between Johnson and his seventh final round of the season was No. 1 qualifier and current POWERade points leader Greg Anderson. Once again, Johnson would face a quicker car without lane choice, making a strong starting line reaction time almost necessity in order to win.
Responding to the challenge, Johnson posted a perfect .000 reaction time, leaving the line over a hundredth of a second ahead of his opponent. Unfortunately, it was not enough to hold off his opponent, who used a 6.798-second pass to edge Johnson's 6.838-second, 202.12 mph pass.
"Although I had a perfect reaction time in the semifinals, Greg (Anderson) had a strong light of his own. I was actually hoping he would be off a little bit, and we might be able to get by him, but it wasn't meant to be. We did all we could on that run, and came up with a 6.83. We had changed a few components on our ACDelco Cavalier before that run trying to pick up the pace, and I'm not sure whether it helped or not.
"It came down to needing to run a 6.811 to beat him, but we didn't. It was a productive day, but we would like to have made it even better. The bottom line is that we need to find three hundredths, so it's time to get to work."
