NHRA

Phoenix: Warren Johnson Saturday summary

WJ Powers to the Second Starting Position in Phoenix Making competitive runs while still getting a handle on his race car, Warren Johnson qualified his GM Performance Parts Grand Am second for Sunday's final eliminations of the Checker Schuck's ...

Edited: Feb 28, 2005, 5:35 AM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

WJ Powers to the Second Starting Position in Phoenix

Making competitive runs while still getting a handle on his race car, Warren Johnson qualified his GM Performance Parts Grand Am second for Sunday's final eliminations of the Checker Schuck's Kragen Nationals in Phoenix, AZ.

After opening with a solid effort on Friday, Johnson clocked the quickest Pro Stock pass of the day on Saturday morning, tripping the Firebird Raceway clocks in 6.743 seconds, with a top speed of 204.94 mph. Having cemented the second starting spot for Sunday, "The Professor" used his final timed run to try a different combination, producing the fastest top speed of the day at 205.16 mph, and putting the team in a good position to score their third win in the Valley of the Sun.

"Since we've had limited track time with this new GM Performance Parts Grand Am, and it's a different animal both in the chassis and the engine combination, we take advantage of any opportunity to try new things. Therefore, we hope to qualify well early in the weekend so we can make a few calculated changes in the subsequent qualifying sessions to learn something.

"Basically, that is what we have done this weekend, and slowly but surely, it's coming along. There were a couple sessions where we didn't pick up, but now we know now to go in that direction again. Once we can get a solid two days at a test track, we'll get it sorted out, which we expect will happen by Gainesville.

"But for now, we have a fairly competitive package, and the track is actually pretty decent. The rubber is a little thin on it, but everyone seems to be able to get down it. The right lane is a little suspicious in the middle of the track, with several people having a problem with the car moving around, but overall, it's not bad. Fortunately, we don't have mineshaft conditions, because then we would be in trouble. But for these atmospheric conditions, it's more than adequate, and we'll deal with it as best as possible tomorrow."

-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

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Phoenix: First-round pairings

Next article Phoenix: Gary Densham Saturday summary

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Shane van Gisbergen gets new crew chief for 2027 NASCAR Cup season

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Homestead-Miami

6 min

Shane van Gisbergen gets new crew chief for 2027 NASCAR Cup season

Conquest Racing locks in 2027 IMSA GTD lineup with Manny Franco full-time return

IMSA

IMSA IMSA 25 min

Conquest Racing locks in 2027 IMSA GTD lineup with Manny Franco full-time return

How Cadillac triumphed in the WEC Monza 6 Hours without the fastest car

WEC

Monza

How Cadillac triumphed in the WEC Monza 6 Hours without the fastest car

Malthe Jakobsen completes McLaren's WEC Hypercar driver line-up

WEC

WEC WEC 50 min

Malthe Jakobsen completes McLaren's WEC Hypercar driver line-up

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