NHRA Kurt Johnson Qualifying Wrap Up: KJ's Memphis Title Defense Will Start from Eighth

Contact:  Jon Knapp   

TMG Sports Marketing, Inc.

 Ph: (704) 662-3121

jgknapp@tmgsports.net

 

KJ's Memphis Title Defense Will Start from Eighth

 

Event:  20th Annual O'Reilly Mid-South Nationals

Day/Date: Saturday, September 15, 2007

Location:  Memphis Motorsports Park, Memphis, Tennessee

 

On the strength of a 6.625-second, 208.04 mph run recorded on his final
attempt, Kurt Johnson qualified his ACDelco Cobalt eighth for Sunday's
final eliminations of the O'Reilly Mid-South Nationals in Memphis, TN. 

 

A cold front that moved into the Memphis area overnight dropped the
ambient temperatures by over ten degrees from Friday, creating
conditions that were nearly ideal for the naturally aspirated Pro Stock
Cars.   As a result, teams were forced to step up their performance in
order to simply qualify, with times dropping by almost six hundredths of
a second.

 

After a solid 6.639-second, 207.40 mph pass in the early session on
Saturday secured their starting position for race day, Johnson and the
red, white and blue crew made some adjustments for their final run.
Despite running in the less-preferred right hand lane, they delivered
the fourth quickest pass for the final session, moving them up to the
eighth position and giving them the benefit of lane choice for the first
round on Sunday, as he looks to repeat his winning performance from this
race a year ago.

 

"The run this morning didn't go quite as we planned, but we still ran
fairly decent.  We would have been sweating it going into the last
session if we had run a 6.67, but that 6.63 left us fairly confident we
wouldn't get bumped.  As a result, we threw everything at our ACDelco
Cobalt for the final run, and it all came together nicely.  We moved
into the top half and got lane choice, and even had a .48 on the tree
after struggling in the early sessions, which I can tighten up with the
air gap.  

 

"Tomorrow, we need to be in the 20's and 30's on the tree, and make nice
smooth runs, making it at least to semifinals.  Looking at the ladder,
everyone in this category is tough, so we'll have to be on our game.
We'll see what we can do about repeating our win from last year."

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