Georgia Drag Racing News

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

Sunday, May 01, 2005

KJ takes his new ACDelco Cobalt to the Bristol Semifinals

CourtesyJon Knapp
TMG Sports Marketing, Inc.

Kurt Johnson gave his new ACDelco Cobalt a successful debut on Sunday, powering to the semifinals of the O'Reilly Thunder Valley Nationals in Bristol, TN. Despite having to deal with completely different weather conditions and a virtually untested race car, Johnson's close-knit crew made the right calls on race day, recording the quickest pass of the opening round at 6.747 seconds in defeating Ben Watson.

In the second round, Johnson combined a lightning-fast .019 reaction time and a consistent 6.745-second pass to eliminate veteran Rickie Smith. This set the stage for a semi-final match-up with his father, six-time Pro Stock champion Warren Johnson. Despite running in the less preferred left-hand lane, KJ posted a solid 6.759-second elapsed time. However, it was not enough to hold off the senior Johnson's 6.757-second, 204.29 mph pass.

Even so, Kurt realized it had been a great start for his new race car.

"We certainly would have liked to have taken our ACDelco Cobalt to the winner's circle in its first race, but it didn't happen. We felt we made some good runs today, but the last one was sub-par compared to the others. Even so, we were one of the better cars on race day, which, considering just how little time we have had with this car, has us excited moving forward.

"I was also happy with my driving this weekend. I had my best light of the season in the second round, and hopefully, it should get better as I get more comfortable in the car, getting the clutch pedal and everything else just right.

"We'll take what we learned today, evaluate it and make the necessary changes. We also plan to test in Atlanta over the next two days and get ready for our home race in a couple weeks."