NHRA Warren Johnson Sunday Update: WJ Steps Up, Will Start Second in Indy

Event:  51st Annual Mac Tools U.S.  Nationals  
Day/Date: Sunday, September 4,  2005 
Location:  Indianapolis Raceway Park,  Indianapolis, IN 
This weekend’s Mac Tools U.S.  Nationals marks only the third event where 
Warren Johnson has raced his new GM  Performance Parts GTO.  During that  time, 
he has been experiencing a bit of a learning curve as he and his team have  
worked to learn with their race car’s tuning envelope.   
That procedure was complicated even  further when a mysterious part failure 
skewed their tuning data.  Having solved this problem just prior to  their 
arrival in Indianapolis, the veteran crew slowly closed in on their race  car’s “
sweet spot�?? until their fourth attempt on Sunday morning, when “The  Professor
�?? made his best run at 6.727 seconds with a top speed of 205.66 mph to  earn 
the second starting position for Sunday’s final  eliminations. 
“When we assembled this new GM  Performance Parts GTO, we transferred several 
components from the car we ran  previously to this one, including the shocks. 
 Unfortunately, the right front’s  performance had deteriorated, and we had 
been compensating for how the car  reacted, not knowing that one component was 
the source of our problem until it  really became evident that we simply couldn
’t adjust for it.   We finally diagnosed and fixed it  before this race, and 
have been slowly backing our way in to a combination that  would work. 
“We kept working at it until this  morning, when we finally got back into the 
right zone, producing that 6.72.  Knowing no one would bump us out of  second 
this afternoon, we tried something new, and learned something.  We’ll go back 
to a known shock set-up  for tomorrow, and do some testing before Reading to 
fine tune it.   
“We’re encouraged heading into  tomorrow.  Looking at the  incremental 
numbers, we have the strongest car from the 330-foot mark to the  finish line, so 
we just have to get to through the first 330 feet a little bit  quicker, and we 
should be in great shape.�??