Memphis: Kurt Johnson Friday notes

KJ's "Shot in the Dark" Nets the Sixth Spot on Friday in Memphis

After their first qualifying attempt at the O'Reilly Mid-South Nationals was cut short by a malfunction, Kurt Johnson and the ACDelco Cobalt Racing team found themselves fighting to catch up in the Friday evening session. This challenge was made even greater by their being in the second pair of cars out of the twenty-four making an attempt as well as their not having tuning information from their earlier run on the tricky Memphis Motorsports Park track.

Undaunted, the Johnson-led crew responded, focusing on their next attempt. Their efforts were rewarded with a 6.709-second elapsed time and the top speed of the session at 205.76 mph, good enough for sixth midway through the qualifying procedure.

"We looked at tonight's run as a shot in the dark, simply due to the fact that we had issues on the first session. When you miss a run, especially the first one, it really hurts you. Fortunately, we regrouped. We went up with pretty much the same set-up as we had used for the afternoon, with only a few small changes.

"Fortunately, the conditions didn't change a lot except for the track temperature, and we compensated for that. We were pretty happy to go 6.70, especially considering there is a couple of hundredths difference between the lanes. We're going to go in that left lane tomorrow morning, and we need to hit a home run. After all, right now every point counts."

-credit: j2r