Championship Drag Racing

O’Reilly NHRA Mid-South Nationals
Memphis, Tenn.
(September 26-28)

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Kurt Johnson Mark Christopher Auto Center Chevrolet Cobalt

Memphis, Friday: Kurt Johnson continued his string of strong qualifying performances on Friday at the O’Reilly NHRA Mid-South Nationals, with his 6.618-second, 207.69 mph pass in the evening session placing him fifth in the provisional starting order.  Although the majority of the 20 cars attempting to qualify would be more than pleased with this result, Johnson felt something was amiss in his race car, and enters Saturday’s final two attempts determined to address whatever issues it might have in order to extract further performance in the second half of the run.

“We’re extremely happy with our ACDelco Cobalt’s performance in the first 300 feet, but for some reason it’s off in the back half.  Mechanically, there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong, and we don’t believe there is anything wrong with the motor.  However, it’s just not going anywhere in the latter part of the run.  We brought up a similar run from Reading earlier this year, where it ran a top speed of 208.91 mph under similar conditions, as opposed to the 207.69 mph we put up tonight.  It’s something that we first saw in Dallas last weekend, so we have to figure out what’s happening.  Obviously, we have work to do before tomorrow morning’s session, but we should be fine.”

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