WJ Qualifies 12th in Chicago
Contact: Jon Knapp
TMG Sports Marketing, Inc.
Sitting in the fourteenth position following the first day of qualifying for the Carquest Auto Parts Nationals, Warren Johnson knew he would need improvement in order to secure his position in Sunday’s starting line-up. Complicating "The Professor's" assignment was the weather, with intermittent rain changing both track and atmospheric conditions on a continual basis, as well as reducing the number of professional qualifying attempts to just three.
Even so, the GM Performance Parts GTO took full advantage of the opportunity, posting the fourth quickest pass of the session at 6.685-seconds with a top speed of 206.89 mph to claim the 12th starting position.
"We made a lot of changes to our GM Performance Parts GTO based on what we saw from last night's attempt. Although that run was good enough to qualify, it wasn’t at the level of performance where we're accustomed to running. We looked at what we did and did not accomplish, and adjusted the car accordingly. As a result, we were only one of two cars to improve their qualifying position. All in all, we made some scholarly choices, but we still have room for improvement.
"I can't say whether the loss of the final qualifying session had that much of an effect, although we all certainly would have liked to have another shot at the track. The atmospheric conditions were a tad worse than they were earlier today so the some of the teams who had the misfortune to be outside of the field would have had their work cut out for them, unless they made a gross error this morning. Of course, I am sure there are teams like us who had things they wanted to try in order to have an additional tool to work with for race day.
"We're in good shape heading into race day. Kurt (WJ's son, who will start sixth) qualified well, and we were the fourth quickest in this morning’s session, where conditions most closely resembled what we’ll run tomorrow, so all in all we're cautiously optimistic."
TMG Sports Marketing, Inc.
Sitting in the fourteenth position following the first day of qualifying for the Carquest Auto Parts Nationals, Warren Johnson knew he would need improvement in order to secure his position in Sunday’s starting line-up. Complicating "The Professor's" assignment was the weather, with intermittent rain changing both track and atmospheric conditions on a continual basis, as well as reducing the number of professional qualifying attempts to just three.
Even so, the GM Performance Parts GTO took full advantage of the opportunity, posting the fourth quickest pass of the session at 6.685-seconds with a top speed of 206.89 mph to claim the 12th starting position.
"We made a lot of changes to our GM Performance Parts GTO based on what we saw from last night's attempt. Although that run was good enough to qualify, it wasn’t at the level of performance where we're accustomed to running. We looked at what we did and did not accomplish, and adjusted the car accordingly. As a result, we were only one of two cars to improve their qualifying position. All in all, we made some scholarly choices, but we still have room for improvement.
"I can't say whether the loss of the final qualifying session had that much of an effect, although we all certainly would have liked to have another shot at the track. The atmospheric conditions were a tad worse than they were earlier today so the some of the teams who had the misfortune to be outside of the field would have had their work cut out for them, unless they made a gross error this morning. Of course, I am sure there are teams like us who had things they wanted to try in order to have an additional tool to work with for race day.
"We're in good shape heading into race day. Kurt (WJ's son, who will start sixth) qualified well, and we were the fourth quickest in this morning’s session, where conditions most closely resembled what we’ll run tomorrow, so all in all we're cautiously optimistic."
posted by David @ 12:24 AM
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