The Pro Stocks, usually not prone to the on-track wildness of their nitro-powered brothers, had problems at St. Louis. Even Jason Line. When is the last time you saw a Pro Stock fire? (Bret Kepner photo)
 Kurt Johnson and dad, Warren, watched the other competitors and did plenty of thinking in order to get the Pro Stock win. (Jeff Burk photo) |
"It was pretty tough out there," Johnson said. "There was a lot of tire shake... I think everybody just kind of underestimated the race track. It was exceptional for me. We ran a .58 this morning and it's hard to touch it after that, but we knew we had to make some changes. We changed the gears around; we changed the clutch around. The whole
ACDelco crew just came together and we did what we needed to do."
In the closest race of the day of any of the professional categories, KJ combined a stout .014 reaction time with a 6.620/209.33 mph pass to edge Jeg Coughlin by one ten-thousandth of a second, as he posted a 6.623-second, 208.01 mph in the losing effort.
"We were welded together out there and I thought I'd edged him right at the stripe," Coughlin said. "Then I glanced over and my win light wasn't on so I realized he'd taken the win. Holy mackerel that was close. That was a thrill no matter who won.
(Linda Brock photo)
After qualifying third for the O’Reilly Midwest Nationals before a lot of visitors from his new sponsor, St. Louis-based Charter Communications, Dave Connolly showed that missing the first few races hadn’t left him very rusty.
He defeated Ron Krisher, Allen Johnson and Greg Anderson in workmanlike
fashion to reach his 30th career title round, but a clutch problem at the starting line against Kurt Johnson foiled his chances of winning his 18th race.
The result was an uncharacteristically slow reaction time of .144 seconds, leaving Johnson with an advantage that couldn’t be overcome. It did, however, produce Connolly’s quickest and fastest run of the weekend in the Charter Communications Chevy Cobalt from Victor Cagnazzi Racing. Johnson’s 6.631-second elapsed time at 208.79 beat Connolly’s 6.651 at 208.78.
Connolly called it an “interesting weekend; and it was fun,” he said, “but basically it was a test session for us each round. We were putting a new clutch in the car every round. It was the weirdest day I’ve ever seen in Pro Stock, that’s for sure.”
The fifth-year pro took full blame for the slow start, although not one of his teammates agreed. “I screwed it up. I just let the car go through the (starting) beams and as soon as I went to stop it, the tree was on and I was just dead late. We could’ve run with Kurt…it was a win we should’ve had.”