NHRA Warren Johnson Race Wrap Up: WJ Drives to Memphis Quarterfinals

Contact:  Jon Knapp   

TMG Sports Marketing, Inc.

 Ph: (704) 662-3121

jgknapp@tmgsports.net 

 

WJ Drives to Memphis Quarterfinals

 

Event:  19th Annual O'Reilly NHRA Mid-South Nationals

Day/Date: Monday, August 21, 2006

Location:  Memphis Motorsports Park, Millington, TN

 

After qualifying tenth for Sunday's final eliminations of the O'Reilly
Mid-South Nationals, Warren Johnson and the GM Performance Parts GTO
Racing team knew they were facing an uphill climb.  In the first round,
they squared off against David Connolly, who won the most recent stop on
the POWERade Drag Racing Series in Brainerd a week ago.  Further
complicating their task was the fact that they would be racing without
the benefit of lane choice.   

 

All of this mattered little to Johnson, who simply focused on making
sure he extracted the maximum performance from himself and his race car.
The strategy paid off when The Professor used a quick .024 reaction time
to gain the advantage by over three hundredths of a second at the
starting line, and then combined it with a solid 6.814-second, 203.06
mph run to score a holeshot win over Connolly, who recorded a
6.788-second, 203.12 mph pass in the losing effort.  However, shortly
after the completion of the opening round, heavy rains forced NHRA
officials to postpone the final three rounds until Monday.

 

When the racers returned to Memphis Motorsports Park in the morning,
they encountered overcast skies with cooler temperatures, high humidity
and a totally different racing surface.  Once again relegated to the
less-preferred right hand lane, Johnson faced another tough challenge in
No. 2 qualifier Mike Edwards. As he had a day ago, WJ put together a
good reaction time the second quickest pass of the round in that lane at
6.731 seconds with a top speed of 204.05 mph.  Unfortunately, it was not
enough to overcome Edwards' perfect .000 reaction time (an extremely
rare occurrence in drag racing) and 6.718-second, 204.54 mph run.

 

Although disappointed by the early end to his day, Johnson was
philosophical about the outcome, and left Memphis satisfied with his
team's performance over the extended weekend.

.

"Mike did what he had to do, and did it perfectly.  You just have to
congratulate him on the fine effort.  That's just the way things go in
this sport.   However, comparing our respective times from the first two
rounds, we actually picked up more today than he did, which is what
matters in the long run.  Overall, I'd have to say I'm happy with our
performance, and, with Kurt winning, it was a good day for our team.

 

"This was our last race with this particular chassis, as we will be
bringing out a new GM Performance Parts GTO in Indianapolis in two
weeks.  In fact, with some of the trials and tribulations we've had with
this car, we're not going to transfer any parts from it to the new one -
in fact, we may start this one up and let it idle in the corner until
the new one is done to make darn sure nothing is put on the new one.  In
any case, we're leaving here looking forward to the U.S. Nationals."

 

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