Bristol: Kurt Johnson Saturday notes

KJ's Strong Saturday Places Him Fifth in Bristol

The second day of qualifying for the O'Reilly NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals proved to be a good one for Kurt Johnson and the ACDelco Cobalt Racing team, as they rebounded from the unusual driveline failure that cut short their opening attempt on Friday to post the fourth quickest elapsed time in each of the final two qualifying sessions, and capture the fifth starting position for Sunday's final eliminations at Bristol Dragway.

Despite Saturday's slightly higher temperatures, KJ was able to better his Friday evening run in the early afternoon session, logging a strong 6.789-second, 203.77 mph pass, which proved to be their run of record. After backing up that effort with a 6.804-second, 203.00 mph effort in the final session, the second-generation racer felt good about his chances for race day.

"We've been struggling over the last few races, so we're really pleased that our ACDelco Cobalt made two really nice runs today. It was a good job by the entire crew to bounce back from the first round yesterday. It put us a little behind, but we put it behind us and kept working.

"To be honest, from what we saw, I believe we have a car capable of winning the race, but we're not about to get ahead of ourselves. We have four rounds tomorrow, and it may be a cliche, but we are going to take them one at a time. It's about time we went some rounds."

-credit: j2r