Joliet: Warren Johnson Saturday notes

WJ Will Start Second at Route 66 Raceway

Warren Johnson completed yet another strong qualifying performance on Saturday, with his GM Performance Parts Pontiac GXP earning the second starting position for Sunday's final eliminations of the Torco Racing Fuels Route 66 Nationals in Joliet, IL. After setting the low elapsed time on Friday, WJ came back on Saturday with an equally strong 6.707-second time, missing the No. 1 position by just two thousandths of a second.

Even so, with his 206.95 mph top speed almost a mile and a half faster than his closest opponent and having a fairly decent grasp on his race car's tuning envelope for this particular track, The Professor was pleased with his team's effort, and optimistic heading into race day.

"Our GM Performance Parts GXP made a pretty good run this morning, although spinning the tires in third and fourth gear probably cost us the No. 1 spot. Feeling pretty confident we wouldn't get bumped out, we decided to experiment a little in the afternoon session, because we had some things we wanted to try, and probably won't be able to test here on Monday due to rain. Even though it popped out of third gear, we were able to find out what we needed, which was not to do that again!

"Overall, I'd have to say we're satisfied. For tomorrow, we'll go back to something we know works, and tune it up from there. It's time for this car to go some rounds on Sunday."

-credit: j2r