<img src="http://www.nitromater.com/gallery/files/5/KJ.jpg" alt="KJ" align="left"borders="0"/>
POMONA, Calif., Feb. 8, 2008 - The second day of qualifying for the 48th annual Car Quest Auto Parts NHRA Winternationals saw Kurt Johnson's ACDelco Chevy Cobalt post the quickest elapsed time of the day in the Pro Stock category. Johnson's Chevrolet was the only car of the session to improve on its Thursday time when it posted a 6.646 second run at 208.36 mph, and that kept the 43-year-old Johnson in the No. 2 spot heading into the final day of time trials on Saturday. Johnson won this event in 2001.
"Even though the air was 300-400 feet worse (than yesterday), we actually picked up," Johnson said. "That was the quickest corrected run I've ever made. It corrected to a 6.53 flat at 212.06. You can take that run there, put it on a cooler race track and pick up another couple of hundredths. We're just glad that we were able to take a car that was going down a 60-degree race track a couple of days ago in Las Vegas, and now have it go down a track where there's almost a 40 degree swing in track temperatures. That's huge, especially when you consider we don't have a lot of data to look at for this particular racecar."
Kurt Johnson Post-Qualifying - YouTube - Team Chevy's Kurt Johnson Post Qualifying NHRA Winternationa
With yesterday's run of 6.635 seconds, Greg Anderson's Summit Racing Pontiac GXP was able to hold off Kurt Johnson's Chevrolet to keep the No. 1 starting position even though his car shook the tires hard during his second qualifying attempt.
"We have to figure out what we did wrong there," Anderson said. "There's an obvious difference in the two lanes and we realize that now. We have to learn from that, how to play it for tomorrow and hopefully we'll be okay. We try to make clean runs every time we go up to the line and we did something wrong - we made a bad guess and we missed."
A three-time NHRA POWERade champion (2003-05), Anderson is also a three-time winner of the Winternationals (2004, 2006-07) and has been No. 1 qualifier at this event three times (2004, 2006-07). Anderson's 51 career victories place him sixth all time by a NHRA professional driver and third all time among active, full-time professional drivers.
Defending POWERade champion Jeg Coughlin Jr. has his yellow and black Chevrolet qualified in the No. 3 position. Warren Johnson's GM Performance Pontiac is qualified in the No. 4 slot, Jason Line is No. 5 in a Pontiac, Justin Humphreys is No. 6 in a Pontiac and Greg Stanfield in No. 7 in a Pontiac GXP.
Qualifying coverage of the 48th annual NHRA Winternationals will be telecast on ESPN2 on Saturday, Feb. 9, beginning at 8 p.m. Eastern. NHRA Race Day will kick off eliminator coverage on Sunday Feb. 10 starting at 11 a.m. Eastern on ESPN2, and a telecast of final eliminations will start at 7:30 p.m. Eastern.
Kurt Johnson's Chevy Cobalt Quickest Of the Day at Pomona - Greg Anderson's Pontiac GXP Stays No. 1 at NHRA Winternationals
POMONA, Calif., Feb. 8, 2008 - The second day of qualifying for the 48th annual Car Quest Auto Parts NHRA Winternationals saw Kurt Johnson's ACDelco Chevy Cobalt post the quickest elapsed time of the day in the Pro Stock category. Johnson's Chevrolet was the only car of the session to improve on its Thursday time when it posted a 6.646 second run at 208.36 mph, and that kept the 43-year-old Johnson in the No. 2 spot heading into the final day of time trials on Saturday. Johnson won this event in 2001.
"Even though the air was 300-400 feet worse (than yesterday), we actually picked up," Johnson said. "That was the quickest corrected run I've ever made. It corrected to a 6.53 flat at 212.06. You can take that run there, put it on a cooler race track and pick up another couple of hundredths. We're just glad that we were able to take a car that was going down a 60-degree race track a couple of days ago in Las Vegas, and now have it go down a track where there's almost a 40 degree swing in track temperatures. That's huge, especially when you consider we don't have a lot of data to look at for this particular racecar."
Kurt Johnson Post-Qualifying - YouTube - Team Chevy's Kurt Johnson Post Qualifying NHRA Winternationa
With yesterday's run of 6.635 seconds, Greg Anderson's Summit Racing Pontiac GXP was able to hold off Kurt Johnson's Chevrolet to keep the No. 1 starting position even though his car shook the tires hard during his second qualifying attempt.
"We have to figure out what we did wrong there," Anderson said. "There's an obvious difference in the two lanes and we realize that now. We have to learn from that, how to play it for tomorrow and hopefully we'll be okay. We try to make clean runs every time we go up to the line and we did something wrong - we made a bad guess and we missed."
A three-time NHRA POWERade champion (2003-05), Anderson is also a three-time winner of the Winternationals (2004, 2006-07) and has been No. 1 qualifier at this event three times (2004, 2006-07). Anderson's 51 career victories place him sixth all time by a NHRA professional driver and third all time among active, full-time professional drivers.
Defending POWERade champion Jeg Coughlin Jr. has his yellow and black Chevrolet qualified in the No. 3 position. Warren Johnson's GM Performance Pontiac is qualified in the No. 4 slot, Jason Line is No. 5 in a Pontiac, Justin Humphreys is No. 6 in a Pontiac and Greg Stanfield in No. 7 in a Pontiac GXP.
Qualifying coverage of the 48th annual NHRA Winternationals will be telecast on ESPN2 on Saturday, Feb. 9, beginning at 8 p.m. Eastern. NHRA Race Day will kick off eliminator coverage on Sunday Feb. 10 starting at 11 a.m. Eastern on ESPN2, and a telecast of final eliminations will start at 7:30 p.m. Eastern.
