NHRA

Brainerd: Warren Johnson Saturday summary

WJ Powers His New Car to the No. 1 spot in Brainerd Warren Johnson's first race with his new GM Performance Parts Pontiac GTO got off to the best possible start in qualifying, as he powered his way to the No. 1 position at the Lucas Oil Nationals ...

Published: Aug 14, 2005, 4:03 AM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

WJ Powers His New Car to the No. 1 spot in Brainerd

Warren Johnson's first race with his new GM Performance Parts Pontiac GTO got off to the best possible start in qualifying, as he powered his way to the No. 1 position at the Lucas Oil Nationals in Brainerd, MN. During his third attempt on Saturday morning, Johnson blistered the Minnesota quarter-mile, resetting both ends of the track record with his 6.698-second, 206.57 mph run. This was Johnson's sixth "pole" of 2005, 136th of his career (the most by any professional driver in NHRA history) and fifth at Brainerd International Raceway.

"We're certainly not going to complain about our GM Performance Parts GTO's performance to this point. Obviously we knew there was going to be a steep learning curve to get to where we could make better choices to improve its performance, but overall it's a good start."

"We had made the decision before coming to Brainerd to run one particular engine for the first two runs, and then to switch for our last two attempts. It's part of our plan to learn exactly what we have with these different DRCE III powerplants, and in this case, it worked out nicely."

"Realizing how much better this new GTO would be aero-wise over what we had run in the early part of the season, we knew it would be in our best interest to work on getting it on the track as soon as possible. Unfortunately, our test session in St. Louis on Wednesday was cut short by rain, so we arrived here with only three passes on the new car."

"Once we got here, we kept pecking away at the tune-up, working to make it better. For the limited experience we have with it, this morning's run was very good, leaving very little on the table. Fortunately, it was enough to put us on top. However, even though we're certainly happy with where we are right now, we know we still have a lot of work to do, starting with the first round tomorrow."

-j2r-

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Brainerd: Kalitta Motorsports Saturday summary

Next article Brainerd: Saturday qualifying report

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Manthey acknowledges IMSA to be "tougher than expected" despite two wins

IMSA

IMSA IMSA 2 h

Manthey acknowledges IMSA to be "tougher than expected" despite two wins

How a philosophy shift brought BMW to new heights in 2026

IMSA

IMSA IMSA 2 h

How a philosophy shift brought BMW to new heights in 2026

Fred Vasseur reveals two costly moments that denied Ferrari US GP double podium

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

United States GP

2 h

Fred Vasseur reveals two costly moments that denied Ferrari US GP double podium

Cleetus McFarland set to compete full-time for 2027 ARCA championship

ARCA

ARCA ARCA 4 h

Cleetus McFarland set to compete full-time for 2027 ARCA championship

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts