This weekend, the NHRA will head to Gainesville, FL for one of the sport’s marquee events, the Gatornationals, and Pro Stock icon Warren Johnson is ready to finally get his season started in earnest. Having spent the majority of the off-season in search of a sponsor, the Hall of Fame racer entered the 2009 Full Throttle Drag Racing campaign with a virtually untested race car, a challenge that was further heightened by the rains that canceled all but one qualifying session at the season-opening event in Pomona.
Despite not being at full strength, the team still acquitted themselves fairly well in the first two races, showing glimpses of the potential performance to come. Therefore, with a full two and a half weeks to prepare, Johnson and his K&N Filters Pontiac Racing team are looking forward to getting back on the winning track and staking their claim in this year’s championship countdown.
“During the off-season, we were more preoccupied with making sure we would have the opportunity to race than we were with getting this new race car ready for competition, with our search for sponsorship taking us right down to the wire,” said Johnson. “As if that didn’t put us behind the eight ball enough, Mother Nature decided to throw us a couple curves of her own, with rain wiping out one full day of our only pre-season test session and limiting us to a single qualifying pass in Pomona. Even so, we were able to make a decent showing in Pomona and Phoenix. Having now had a little time to work on things, I feel pretty comfortable that we’ll be right back in the hunt at the Gatornationals.”
Since returning from Arizona, The Professor has been ensconced in his shop in Sugar Hill, GA, filtering through all the data collected in this particular chassis’ brief existence. However, to accelerate the learning curve, WJ cross-referenced t his information with his extensive library of tuning notes, extrapolating ideas that he hopes to put to good use this weekend.
“Basically, we are doing what we have always done, referencing our notes from previous years to see if there is any information that we can use with our current race car,” said Johnson. “In some cases, that includes going as far back as 1992. Fortunately, I’ve come up with a few things that I am confident we can apply directly to our K&N Filters Pontiac.
| 
|