Championship Drag Racing

Mac Tools U.S. Nationals
Clermont, IN
(August 31-September 5)

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Warren Johnson K&N Filters Pontiac GXP Pro Stocker

Indianapolis, Sunday: This weekend’s Mac Tools U.S. Nationals marks only the third event where Warren Johnson has raced his new GM Performance Parts GTO.  During that time, he has been experiencing a bit of a learning curve as he and his team have worked to learn with their race car’s tuning envelope. 

That procedure was complicated even further when a mysterious part failure skewed their tuning data.  Having solved this problem just prior to their arrival in Indianapolis, the veteran crew slowly closed in on their race car’s “sweet spot” until their fourth attempt on Sunday morning, when “The Professor” made his best run at 6.727 seconds with a top speed of 205.66 mph to earn the second starting position for Sunday’s final eliminations.

“When we assembled this new GM Performance Parts GTO, we transferred several components from the car we ran previously to this one, including the shocks.  Unfortunately, the right front’s performance had deteriorated, and we had been compensating for how the car reacted, not knowing that one component was the source of our problem until it really became evident that we simply couldn’t adjust for it.   We finally diagnosed and fixed it before this race, and have been slowly backing our way in to a combination that would work.

“We kept working at it until this morning, when we finally got back into the right zone, producing that 6.72.  Knowing no one would bump us out of second this afternoon, we tried something new, and learned something.  We’ll go back to a known shock set-up for tomorrow, and do some testing before Reading to fine tune it. 

“We’re encouraged heading into tomorrow.  Looking at the incremental numbers, we have the strongest car from the 330-foot mark to the finish line, so we just have to get to through the first 330 feet a little bit quicker, and we should be in great shape.”

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