Richmond: Kurt Johnson Saturday summary

KJ Will Roll Off Ninth in Richmond

On the strength of a career-best 6.613-second, 209.01 mph pass recorded in Friday's second session. Kurt Johnson qualified his ACDelco Cobalt in the ninth position for Sunday's final eliminations of the Torco Racing Fuels Nationals in Richmond, VA. The naturally-aspirated Pro Stock contingent took full advantage of the ideal conditions at Virginia Motorsports Park, with the top twelve qualifiers besting what had been the national elapsed time record coming into this event, requiring a career-best effort simply to qualify.

Although pleased to have gained a solid starting position in the quickest field in the category's history, at the conclusion of qualifying Johnson immediately turned his attention to improving his performance even further for race day, as he looks to score his first win at the Virginia quarter-mile.

"We're not as pleased with our results today as we were yesterday, but we're working on it. Basically, we're still zeroing in on the right combination to match our ACDelco Cobalt to this racetrack under these conditions. Of course, not getting any data from our first run this morning didn't help.

"The way I see it, we'll need to pick up a couple hundredths to go rounds tomorrow. At this point, there isn't anything obvious staring us in the face that needs to be fixed, so we'll go over the data and check the car from bumper to bumper. We'll come up with a game plan, and see what kind of damage we can do. When the first round rolls around, we'll be ready."

-credit: j2r