Georgia Drag Racing News

Information about Georgia drag racing history, personalities, activities and events from GeorgiaDragRacing.com.

Saturday, February 12, 2005

KJ Powers to Second Starting Position in Pomona

Courtesy Jon Knapp
TMG Sports Marketing, Inc.

On the basis of a career-best elapsed time and a new Pomona Raceway top speed record, Kurt Johnson qualified his ACDelco Cavalier second for Sunday's final eliminations of the Carquest Auto Parts Winternationals in Pomona, CA. After suffering a problem on his first attempt on Thursday, KJ entered Saturday's action looking to gain access in the sixteen-car field.

With clouds threatening to curtail any on-track activity, Johnson quickly dismissed any concerns in the first session by recording a solid 6.741-second run. Having guaranteed a starting spot, he then came back in the final qualifying session to blast through the quarter-mile in 6.708-seconds, lowering his personal best e.t. by one hundredth of a second, despite running in the less-preferred right lane.

In addition, his 206.35 mph top speed reset the Pomona Raceway top speed record, giving the second-generation racer his starting position

"We had planned to be little conservative on our set-up this morning," said Johnson. "But conservative is not my middle name, so I made a big suspension change this morning knowing we had to get our ACDelco Cavalier hooked up after overpowering the racetrack on Thursday. We just worked together, came up with a plan and made it stick, running that 6.74, which was our first run down the track with this engine combination.

"We came back in the afternoon and got after the jetting on the second run, picking up over one mile an hour and making it happy. The clutch was actually a little soft. We just want to get a good baseline for this piece, the GEN III (DRCE 3) stuff and get it to where we can make calls looking at our paperwork, looking at the track, the air and what the car likes. This engine has a different fuel curve, as well as other differences, so we've definitely experienced a bit of a learning curve this weekend.

"We're pretty pleased. We struggled in the latter part of last year, qualifying in the 11 to 16 range, and just hanging on. When we left here at the end of the year, I decided we had to change everything. There wasn't one thing I liked. The only thing we knew is that we had a good car, so we worked on the motor stuff all winter.

"Hopefully we can start on a good note and score some points, but for now, we're going to take it one run at a time."