Madison: Warren Johnson Friday summary

WJ Sits Second Halfway through St. Louis Qualifying

Although track temperatures at Gateway International Raceway soared to as high as 140 degrees during Friday's first day of qualifying, Warren Johnson and the GM Performance Parts Pontiac Racing Team never lost their cool. In each of their two attempts, they were among the top performers in the Pro Stock category, culminating with a 6.758-second, 203.46 mph blast in the nighttime session to place themselves in the second position heading into Saturday's action.

"We made two good, competitive runs today, with the second being a little better than the first. We've continued to work on this DRCE III, and even though we're continuing to chase after it a little bit, we're pretty close. Our main objective right now is to improve the tune-up.

"Our test session earlier in the week helped us get an idea of what gear ratio to use in this GM Performance Parts Pontiac, which is a key. We took a stab at it in the first run, made some adjustments based on what we found, and it came right around.

"As for tomorrow, we'll play it by ear, simply because we're not sure what the weather will be like, and there are so many variables, it's hard to predict. We'll see what we have and take it from there."

-j2r-