NHRA Saturday: Warren Johnson Will Roll Off 14th in Seattle

Final Qualifying Results		

Warren Johnson Will Roll Off 14th in Seattle
 
Event: 17th Annual Carquest Auto Parts Nationals
Location:  Pacific Raceways
       Kent, Washington
Day/Date: Saturday July 24, 2004

Qualifying for the Carquest Auto Parts Nationals was completed on Saturday. The unusually warm temperatures, which enveloped Pacific Raceways, combined with the new racing surface to send teams in search of the right tune-up to maximize their performance.  Warren Johnson and the GM Performance Parts Grand Am responded to the challenge by making four solid runs, consistently maintaining his place in the starting field.  

Johnson's best effort of 6.814 seconds at 202.70 mph, which came during his third attempt on Saturday morning, earned him the 14th starting position as he looks for his fifth national event win in the Great Northwest.

"We started off by not giving this track as much credit as we should have, and as a result had too much bite in the car," detailed Johnson.  "We then made some changes that we had been approaching since a test session before the Madison event.  We had used a variation this tune-up with some success in Denver.  After yesterday, we incorporated that tactic for today's runs, and, although we are not as high in the starting order as we would like, we're actually pretty happy with how the car responded.   

"We'll switch back to the engine we used in Denver, which should put us in good shape for eliminations.  I'm not really concerned about our starting position.  After all, I did win this race from the tenth position in 1989."

Johnson also addressed the dramatic change in the forecast for tomorrow, where temperatures are predicted to be more than ten degrees cooler than they were for qualifying.

"In my opinion, the cooler temperatures should benefit Kurt and myself more than some of our competitors, simply because we run lower compression than they do.  As a result, they tend to hurt more parts, while we also seem to have a bigger tuning window.  It just gives us a little bit of an advantage as far as tuning is concerned over wide temperature and barometric pressure ranges."

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