Championship Drag Racing

O’Reilly NHRA Spring Nationals
Houston, Texas
(March 28-30)

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Driver Profile

Kurt Johnson Mark Christopher Auto Center Chevrolet Cobalt

Houston, Saturday: ACDelco Cobalt racer Kurt Johnson completed an impressive qualifying performance on Saturday at the O’Reilly Spring Nationals in Houston, TX, posting the quickest elapsed time in each of the last three qualifying sessions en route to the 28^th No. 1 qualifying position of his career.  This was Johnson’s first No. 1 qualifying performance since the 2005 Memphis event, and third of his career at Houston Raceway Park.

What made Johnson’s performance even more impressive was that his 6.638-second, 208.42 mph run from Friday evening ultimately gained him the top starting spot, but either his 6.650 second pass from Saturday morning (combined with his 208.04 mph top speed) or his 6.648-second attempt in the final session would have also placed him on top of the 16-car final eliminations field at Houston Raceway Park.   

“We’ve been working on this ACDelco Cobalt, trying to find ways to make it better, and right now it’s fast.  Our job now is to apply what we have and what we’ve learned, making good runs, hooking the car up and taking advantage of its performance.

“We’re pretty pleased with the runs we’ve made so far this weekend, especially considering the amount of changes we’ve thrown at it.  Today we were tuning for tomorrow, throwing different combinations at it, and fortunately everything stuck.  It’s like a Velcro race car – everything we’re throwing at it is sticking.

“Our performance this weekend is important because this is only the second chance we’ve had to run on a hot racetrack.   After looking so bad in Gainesville on Sunday morning, we really wanted to come back strong under hot conditions this weekend.  So far, things are going pretty close to plan, with the exception of Dad’s incident last night.  (Note:  KJ’s father and teammate, six-time champion Warren Johnson, hit the wall following his run Friday night, requiring extensive repairs.)

“Certainly, we’re happy right now, but our goal is to have this type of performance on Sunday.   It’s good to be No. 1 on Saturday, but our goal is to have our ACDelco Cobalt be No.1 on race day.”  

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