After qualifying seventh for Sunday’s final eliminations of the O’Reilly Fall Nationals in Dallas, TX, ACDelco Cobalt racer Kurt Johnson knew it would take a near-perfect performance to challenge for his fourth win of the season and maintain his position atop the Pro Stock championship points standings. Things went according to plan in the first round, as Johnson was able to avoid the rash of upsets that struck four of the Top Six runners in the Countdown to One, defeating veteran V. Gaines with a solid 6.668-second, 206.73 mph pass.
Facing Greg Stanfield in the second round, Kurt gained the early advantage, leaving the starting line one hundredth of a second ahead of his opponent. However, almost immediately after launching, excessive wheel spin sent him shooting to the right, requiring he use his considerable driving skills simply to maintain control, slowing him to a 6.785-second run and allowing his opponent, who carded a 6.703-second, 205.79 mph pass, to drive on for the win.
“Our ACDelco Cobalt was off a little bit in the first round, so we made some adjustments to compensate for it going into the second round. Unfortunately, the track was completely different, and it didn’t help that we were the first pair of cars to run after the fuel cars. As a result, it spun the tires almost instantly, shooting it to the right. What’s slightly puzzling is that it hadn’t shown any signs of doing anything like that since Norwalk back in June.”
“We had been fishing around all weekend trying to improve our performance, but to have it act up like that was unfortunate. Fortunately, we know what we need to do to fix it, but, most importantly, we have to make sure it doesn’t happen again between now and the end of the year. We have to go over all the information from this weekend, put it in the computer, and come up with a winning game plan for Memphis.”
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