NHRA Kurt Johnson Sunday Wrap Up: KJ Eradicates Gremlins to Reach Las Vegas Quarterfinals

 

Event:  6th Annual SummitRacing.com Nationals

Day/Date: Sunday, April 17, 2005

Location:  The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Las Vegas, NV

 

After battling a problem with his race car throughout qualifying that
relegated him to fifteenth starting position at the SummitRacing.com
Nationals, Kurt Johnson and the ACDelco Chevrolet Racing team knew he
had his work cut out for him in Sunday's final eliminations.  He and his
crew would have to first find and fix whatever was wrong, after which
they would have to come up with a tune-up for race day with very little
information from qualifying.   

 

After poring over their notes from previous events at The Strip at Las
Vegas Motor Speedway, they devised a strategy and made several changes
on Sunday morning.  Despite running in the less-preferred left lane, the
team's efforts were rewarded when the ACDelco Chevrolet posted their
quickest elapsed time of the weekend, and second quick for the round,
rocketing down the quarter-mile in 6.871-seconds with a top speed of
201.07 mph to upset No. 2 qualifier Larry Morgan.

 

Ironically, in the second round, Johnson would square off against David
Connolly, the only competitor that had run quicker in the opening
stanza.  Again racing without lane choice, the second-generation racer
used a .026 reaction time to gain a slight advantage at the starting
line.  However, even though he had to pull his car back into the groove
after the launch, he was still able to make another solid pass at
6.920-seconds.  Unfortunately, it was not enough to hold off his
opponent's 6.874-second pass, putting a premature end to Johnson's day. 

 

"The way I look at it, making it to the second round after the struggles
we had in qualifying is a pretty good day.  We started with a nightmare,
and it really didn't turn out the way we wanted it to, but it certainly
could have been worse.  

 

"I'm pretty confident we've finally gotten rid of the gremlins that
plagued us this weekend.  We've been trying some new components, and
it's just been acting crazy the last ten runs.  We made the changes we
thought were necessary, and fortunately, it responded. 

 

"I also had a good day driving, leaving on the two people we raced, and
getting the car to work well with the driver and vice versa.  We missed
lane choice for the second round by two thousandths, which didn't help,
because if we had been able to make a straight run, I think we had a
good shot of advancing. 

 

"This wasn't the way we wanted to end things with this car, but we're
excited about running the Cobalt in Bristol.  We'll go back to Georgia,
get it buttoned up, make sure the seat belts and steering wheel work and
that it hits on all eight cylinders, and put her in the winner's
circle."