Denver: Kurt Johnson preview

A Familiar Face Cuts Short KJ's Day in Denver

Kurt Johnson and the ACDelco Chevy Cobalt Racing team came into race day at the Mile-High Nationals cautiously optimistic about their chances. After all, they had been one of the quickest cars during Friday's qualifying sessions, allowing them to capture the fourth starting position and use Saturday's attempts to work on new combinations. Returning to form in the first round, Kurt used a .025 reaction time to gain the advantage by over two hundredths of a second over Jim Yates, which proved to be the margin of victory as the two competitors posted identical 7.114-sceond elapsed times.

This set the stage for a second-round encounter with a familiar foe, his father, six-time champion Warren Johnson. Although Kurt was able to record a slightly quicker elapsed time at 7.143-seconds, with a top speed of 194.44 mph, it was not enough to overcome the senior Johnson's starting line advantage, who used a 7.150-second, 193.54 mph run to score the narrow victory.

"We ran well when we first got here, and ran well in the first round, but just fell off a bit against Dad. Against Yates, I was relaxed and came up with a .025 light, and thought I had done the same in the second round. In fact, I put it in third gear and looked for the win light, because I thought it was a decent light. Unfortunately, it turned out I was late.

"The only consolation was that it was against Dad, so one of our cars advanced. This is a tough place to race, because it's unlike anywhere else we go, and the entire ACDelco Cobalt crew did really well -- we just didn't come up with the win. That's something we really need, so we'll work on getting it done in Seattle."

-credit: j2r