NHRA
Memphis: Kurt Johnson Saturday summary
KJ Improves, Will Start Fourth in Memphis Qualifying for the O'Reilly Mid-South Nationals was completed on Saturday under conditions that severely challenged teams in the NHRA's Pro Stock category. The combination of 100 degree temperatures and ...
Published: Aug 20, 2006, 1:31 PM
Copy link
Share on Viber
KJ Improves, Will Start Fourth in Memphis
Qualifying for the O'Reilly Mid-South Nationals was completed on Saturday under conditions that severely challenged teams in the NHRA's Pro Stock category. The combination of 100 degree temperatures and drenching humidity combined to strangle the naturally-aspirated "factory hot rods", magnifying the importance of even the slightest error in judgment.
Starting the day confident that his 6.784-second, 203.03 mph pass from Friday evening would keep him in the sixteen-car field, Kurt Johnson used his first attempt on Saturday to gain valuable tuning information on his still-new ACDelco Cobalt.
After duplicating his elapsed time from the previous day on that initial run and bettering his top speed to 203.68 mph, which was third fastest among the 23 cars making an attempt, the second generation racer changed his approach for his last attempt trying to improve his starting position.
Running in the right hand lane, Johnson's car made its best pass of the weekend, a 6.765-second, 204.26 mph blast to capture the fourth starting position for Sunday's final eliminations in Millington, TN.
"We used our first run as a learning experience, trying a few different things to see how this new car would act. We made a decent 6.784-second pass, but when we saw V. Gaines run 6.76, we worried that we might have missed a potential opportunity. So, for the last session, we put it back to the way we had it in Q1 last night and made a few subtle changes.
"I thought it ran pretty well, and even though we might have lost a little in the back half with the carburetion adjustments, it really picked it up in the early part of the run, which is a trade-off we're willing to make.
"This ACDelco Cobalt is really coming around, looking pretty impressive. On each run, it's picked up a couple hundredths on the correction, so now we're looking for a few thousandths. We're looking to have a good day tomorrow with the car and on the tree, and if we do that, it'll be a hit."
-credit: 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 Rally Finland: Leg two summary
Next article Road America: Pirelli qualifying report
Top Comments
There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?
View More & Comment
More from
Kurt Johnson
J.Force, Langdon, Edwards and Arana Sr. take top qualifying spots at Las Vegas
NHRA
NHRA
J.Force, Langdon, Edwards and Arana Sr. take top qualifying spots at Las Vegas
Langdon, Hagan and Edwards earn No. 1 qualifying spots for Southern Nationals in Atlanta
NHRA
NHRA
Langdon, Hagan and Edwards earn No. 1 qualifying spots for Southern Nationals in Atlanta
Coughlin pleased with runner-up result in Pomona
NHRA
NHRA
Coughlin pleased with runner-up result in Pomona
Latest news
Joe Gibbs Racing moves to resolve one portion of Spire countersuit
NASCAR Cup
NAS NASCAR Cup 3 h
Joe Gibbs Racing moves to resolve one portion of Spire countersuit
Alex Bowman hits out at critics in snarky post, shooting down early exit rumors
NASCAR Cup
NAS NASCAR Cup
Homestead-Miami
12 h
Alex Bowman hits out at critics in snarky post, shooting down early exit rumors
Ryan Blaney gets sweet redemption after 'nightmares' following 2024 Homestead loss
NASCAR Cup
NAS NASCAR Cup
Homestead-Miami
12 h
Ryan Blaney gets sweet redemption after 'nightmares' following 2024 Homestead loss
IndyCar 2026 season review: Dale Coyne Racing
IndyCar
Indy IndyCar 13 h
IndyCar 2026 season review: Dale Coyne Racing
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