Baytown: Jack Humphreys final report

Humphreys Loses Early But Stays Ninth in Points; Pontiac GXP Runs Better

It took crew chief Bob  Glidden five runs to find the gremlin in the RaceRedi
Motorsports' new Pontiac  GXP, but, as things turned out Sunday, it was one
quarter-mile lap too late to  help Humphreys take a first-round win in the
O'Reilly Spring Nationals at  Houston Raceway Park.

Allen Johnson lit the win light first with a  6.686-second elapsed time at
206.70 mph to Humphreys' 6.704 at 205.98 mph.   It was the Monrovia, Md.-based
driver's third 6.70-second time of the weekend as  Glidden looked for a reason
why the car lost traction early in the  runs.

Humphreys did leave the starting line six-thousandths of a second (.010 to .016) ahead of Johnson.

"The car made its best run of the  weekend but it was just slow," said
Humphreys.  "Now that we know how to  get the car down the race track, we have to
work on the motors.  Bob had  been fighting the car's setup and found something
Saturday night that definitely  made a difference Sunday."

The team returns to HRP Monday for a test  session to fine tune the race car.
 "We're going to test until we get  things working right," concluded
Humphreys, who remained ninth in NHRA POWERade  Series points.

-credit: rrm