NHRA Warren Johnson Qualifying Wrap Up: WJ Slides into the 15th Starting Spot in Englishtown

Contact:  Jon Knapp   

TMG Sports Marketing, Inc.

 Ph: (704) 662-3121

jgknapp@tmgsports.net

 

 WJ Slides into the 15th Starting Spot in Englishtown 

 

Event:  37th Annual NHRA Supernationals

Day/Date: Saturday, June 17, 2006

Location:  Old Bridge Township Raceway Park, Englishtown, NJ

 

Entering Saturday's final day of qualifying for the NHRA Supernationals
in Englishtown, NJ, Warren Johnson and the GM Performance Parts Racing
team had their work cut out for them.  After fighting to get their car
hooked up to the track on Friday, they faced the unenviable task of
having to race their way into the quickest field in Pro Stock history,
which required running quicker than the strong 6.692-second time posted
by the provisional 16th place qualifier.   

 

Undaunted, Johnson took advantage of the slightly overcast skies to
power his GTO through the quarter-mile in 6.680-seconds with a top speed
of 207.24 mph to claim the 15th starting spot for Sunday's final
eliminations, becoming the only driver to earn his way into the field on
Saturday. 

 

 "We tried a few things yesterday that had showed some significant gains
on the dyno.  On the first run, it blew the tires off, so we figured we
had found some extra horsepower, but for some reason it didn't want to
move in second gear.  As a result, I started looking at the data, both
from those runs and our test session from last week in Joliet, and found
something that both Kurt and I had somehow overlooked. We incorporated
that into today's set-up and picked up the pace this morning. 

 

"After looking at that information, we made some adjustments for this
afternoon and our GM Performance Parts GTO was fourth quickest in the
session, where the conditions most closely resembled what we will race
in tomorrow.  We're happy with what we found, but we either have to get
bigger shovels or dig deeper to see what we can do with this latest
discovery."


 

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