Denver: Kurt Johnson Saturday notes

Another Strong Qualifying Performance Slots KJ Fifth in Denver

Kurt Johnson and the ACDelco Cobalt Racing team continued their string of strong qualifying performances on Saturday, capturing the fifth starting position for Sunday's final eliminations of the Mile-High Nationals in Denver, CO. Taking advantage of the improved atmospheric conditions at Bandimere Speedway, Johnson stepped up his performance on his third attempt, recording a 7.032-second elapsed time with the second-best top speed of the category at 196.22 mph.

This marks the eleventh time in this year's thirteen races that Kurt has qualified in the top five, and his fifteenth top half start in sixteen races on the Colorado mountainside. However, with having accomplished his first objective for the weekend, he quickly turned his attention towards race day, realizing further improvement would be necessary for his team to contend for their third Mile-High Nationals win.

"The 7.03 this morning was fair, and it was within a hundredth of the quickest cars out there. However, we still have some work to do on our ACDelco Cobalt. That run this morning was fairly fast, but we'll need to be even faster tomorrow if we want to win.

"On top of that, we'll have to be a little more consistent than we have been so far this weekend. We've had to make a wide array of runs trying to adapt to the new surface, and have yet to hit the perfect set-up, but we've made gains and gathered a lot of valuable data for tomorrow.

"Tomorrow's going to be fun. We start with a tough competitor in the first round in Rickie Jones. He has the ability to get his foot off the clutch quickly, so we'll treat it like a final round. We'll have to make a perfect call on the car, and I'm going to have to drive my butt off. In fact, as close as the competition is in Pro Stock to win tomorrow it will be like four final rounds. It's something I expect to do."

-credit: j2r