Sonoma: Tommy Johnson Jr final summary

JOHNSON JR. DRIVES TO ROUND-ONE FINISH AT SONOMA

SONOMA, Calif. (July 30, 2006) Tommy Johnson Jr. raced his special edition Skoal RacingSM Chevy Funny Car to a first-round effort Sunday at Infineon Raceway to conclude the 19th annual FRAM-Autolite Nationals.

After qualifying in the No. 12 position with a 4.857-second pass on Friday evening at the scenic Northern California track, Johnson was matched-up against Tony Pedregon for the second straight week. Johnson used a slight starting line advantage with a stout .051 of-a-second reaction time and powered his silver-and-blue Chevy flopper to a run of 4.947 seconds at 307.30 mph, but Pedregon's slightly quicker pass of 4.910 seconds was enough to earn the narrow victory and trip to round two of eliminations. It was Johnson's second quickest pass of the weekend. He also had the best reaction time of the opening round.

"We made a nice pass, but it wasn't good enough," Johnson said. "It was a close race. It's frustrating to end the Western Swing that way. I'm confident we found the problem with our car, but it just got us behind the eight ball this weekend. It's tough to lose close races like that."

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