NHRA Saturday: Kurt Johnson Will Start Ninth in Memphis

Contact: Jon G. Knapp
									TMG Sports Marketing 
									Phone: (704) 662-3121
										     															             jgknapp@tmgsports.net	

Final Qualifying Results		

Kurt Johnson Will Start Ninth in Memphis 
 
Event: 17th Annual O'Reilly Auto Parts Mid-South Nationals
Location:  Memphis Motorsports Park
       Memphis, TN
Day/Date: Saturday August 21, 2004

Throughout the first three qualifying sessions at the O'Reilly Auto Parts Mid-South Nationals, Kurt Johnson had gamely battled to maintain his position in Sunday's starting field.  Even so, with a previous best of 6.850-seconds, Johnson knew further improvement would be necessary on his final attempt to guarantee his participation on race day.  

In fact, as he rolled to the line on Saturday evening at Memphis Motorsports Park, Johnson found himself already outside the top sixteen necessary to qualify.  However, the ACDelco Cavalier pilot quickly allayed any concerns by blasting down the quarter-mile in 6.807 seconds with a top speed of 201.61 mph to capture the ninth starting position.

"We came here planning to try a few new things in our tune-up, and the car seemed to keep fighting us.  We finally went back to the way we ran the car in Brainerd, and it seemed pretty happy, running the third best sixty-foot time of the session, which is where we need to be in order to run a good elapsed time at the finish line.  

"Fortunately, everything came together on the last run, although we naturally would have liked to have run faster in the back half, which is a power issue that we will have to address once we get back to the shop.  For now, we'll keep working on this ACDelco Cavalier, trying to make it better, and we'll see what happens." 


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