NHRA
Las Vegas: Kurt Johnson final summary
Kurt Johnson Drives to a Runner-Up Finish in Las Vegas Kurt Johnson and the ACDelco Racing team had an outstanding day during Sunday's final eliminations of the SummitRacing.com Nationals, scoring a runner-up finish at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor ...
Published: Apr 5, 2004, 5:47 PM
Copy link
Share on Viber
Kurt Johnson Drives to a Runner-Up Finish in Las Vegas
Kurt Johnson and the ACDelco Racing team had an outstanding day during Sunday's final eliminations of the SummitRacing.com Nationals, scoring a runner-up finish at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
After qualifying third, Johnson combined strong driving skills and a powerful race car to score early round wins over veterans Bruce Allen and Jeg Coughlin. In the semi-finals, he faced Jason Line, who had qualified in the second position. Drilling his young opponent by over four hundredths of a second at the starting line, Johnson powered through the quarter-mile in 6.912 seconds with a top speed of 200.38 mph to score the hole shot win, overcoming Line's quicker 6.900-second elapsed time. This placed KJ in his second final of the 2004 season, 52nd of his career, and third consecutive championship round in Las Vegas, where he would face rival and No. 1 qualifier Greg Anderson.
Racing without lane choice and against a car with a perceived performance advantage, Johnson knew he would need every advantage to score his 29th career win. Rising to the challenge, Johnson used his best reaction time of the day to leave on Anderson by a hundredth of second. Even though he made on of the better runs in the less-preferred right hand lane, his 6.908-second elapsed time was not enough to hold off Anderson's 6.849-second charge.
Despite the initial disappointment, Johnson realized it had been a very productive weekend.
"You're never happy when you lose in the final, but we're still pleased with our performance. We came here with a combination that we had never used before at a national event, and made it all the way to the final. Anyway you look at it, it's a good weekend.
"For some reason, our engine seemed to be falling off today, because we're off about four hundredths from where we were at the beginning of the weekend, which obviously didn't help. This particular engine has about forty runs on it, so we'll take it back to Georgia and see what we find.
"But the news is not all bad. I drove well today, leaving on everyone I faced, and the ACDelco Cavalier made good runs all weekend, responding well to our adjustments. Sure, it would be nice to win here, but we're not about to give up. There are twenty-seven other drivers who would love to be in our place.
"The bottom line is that we need to find more power. In the final, we were right with him in the first 330 feet, but by the top end we were down a few hundredths and one mile per hour in top speed, which is all horsepower. That's all it is, so we'll just keep working at it until we find more."
-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
Read also :
Share Or Save This Story
Copy link
Share on Viber
Previous article Las Vegas: Whit Bazemore final summary
Next article Las Vegas: Sunday final summary
Top Comments
There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?
View More & Comment
More from
Jeg Coughlin
Hight, Torrence are champions, Kalitta, Beckman take Pomona wins
NHRA
NHRA
Pomona II
Hight, Torrence are champions, Kalitta, Beckman take Pomona wins
Capps, Schumacher score their first wins of 2018
NHRA
NHRA
Bristol
Capps, Schumacher score their first wins of 2018
Can Millican start a winning streak?
NHRA
NHRA
Norwalk
Can Millican start a winning streak?
Latest news
Red Bull identifies two "key focus" areas after Max Verstappen's promising start in Austin
Formula 1
F1 Formula 1
United States GP
44 min
Red Bull identifies two "key focus" areas after Max Verstappen's promising start in Austin
Supercars Gold Coast: Chaz Mostert dominates wet race for Walkinshaw Toyota
Supercars
SUPC Supercars
Gold Coast 500
1 h
Supercars Gold Coast: Chaz Mostert dominates wet race for Walkinshaw Toyota
Alex Marquez says overtaking Marc Marquez was “too risky” in Australian GP sprint
MotoGP
MGP MotoGP
Australian GP
1 h
Alex Marquez says overtaking Marc Marquez was “too risky” in Australian GP sprint
Jorge Martin declared unfit for Australian GP after suffering fracture in sprint
MotoGP
MGP MotoGP
Australian GP
2 h
Jorge Martin declared unfit for Australian GP after suffering fracture in sprint
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
Subscribe