Brainerd: Kurt Johnson Saturday notes

The Quickest Run of the Day Catapults KJ into the Second Starting Position in Brainerd

After posting the fourth-quickest time on Friday at the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals in Brainerd, MN, Kurt Johnson was confident his ACDelco Cobalt still had room for improvement. Therefore, he entered the second and final day of qualifying determined to improve upon this initial effort and better his standing for Sunday's final eliminations.

Although the warmer temperatures at Brainerd International Raceway on Saturday would slow most of the naturally-aspirated Pro Stock contingent, the second-generation racer was still able to accomplish his goal in the morning session, rocketing down the quarter-mile in 6.681-seconds with a top speed of 205.94 mph. This proved to be the quickest run of the day, and earned Johnson the second starting position for the fifth time in 2008.

"We were definitely behind the eight ball yesterday, but we made some changes to our ACDelco Cobalt for today and it picked up four hundredths on correction. In fact, if we had made that run last night, our calculations show it would have been about a 6.66, which would have been good enough to get us the No. 1 position.

"Still, we're pretty pleased with the car's performance. We learned a few things about running it on a hot racetrack that we believe will help us tomorrow, and feel that we should be able to get down both lanes successfully. All in all, we're looking forward to having some fun on race day."

-credit: j2r