Sat, 26 Sep 2009, 10:34 PM Kurt Johnson Qualifies No. 6 at NHRA Fall Nationals

Courtesy of Jeff Romack

ENNIS, Tex. -- With qualifying for the 24th annual O'Reilly NHRA Fall Nationals in the record books, ACDelco's Kurt Johnson now looks ahead to Sunday's eliminator where he'll start race day in the No. 6 position after posting an elapsed time of 6.639 seconds at 208.42 mph.

"It's good any time you can secure lane choice for race day," Johnson said. "Hopefully we can put the ACDelco Chevrolet in the winner's circle in some way, form or fashion and get that 40th victory. That's what we're going after now."

With the rapid rise in air temps today at the Texas Motorplex there were very few position changes in the Pro Stock qualifying order from Friday. Many teams were focusing on their race day set up and how to contend with Sunday temperatures forecast for the mid 90s.

During Saturday's first qualifying round the ACDelco Chevrolet driver posted a 6.660 second run at 208.52 mph, which was the second fastest speed of the session, and then Johnson closed out qualifying with a 6.683 e.t. at 207.24 mph.

"We actually made a pretty smooth run during that last session," Johnson said. "It's almost as if we were too conservative. We went down through there and come up with a 6.68. We obviously wanted to go a little bit faster but we used a different set of tires that seemed to slow it down a little bit. We'll go back to the combination we had this morning. We felt we could pick up maybe a hundredth on it; we ran good speed this morning so we'll get back to that combination and see if we can get close.

"It looks like you have a group of cars between 6.65 and 6.68 and then you have a rocket ship (Mike Edwards) going a 6.61. Edwards' run was pretty breathtaking. We're racing for second place right now."

Johnson will face Rodger Brogdon in round one of eliminations on Sunday. The two have faced each other only once on race day this year with Johnson coming away the winner at Bristol (Tenn.)

"We're not worried about championships or anything like that," Johnson said. "We're more focused on round and race wins."

The No. 1 qualifier was Mike Edwards in a Pontiac. Edwards took the top spot with a 6.597 second run at 209.88 mph. Jason Line is qualified in the No. 2 spot, Jeg Coughlin is third, Tom Hammonds is fourth and Greg Anderson is fifth.

The O'Reilly NHRA Fall Nationals at the Texas Motorplex in Ennis, Tex., on Sept. 24 - 27, is the second race on the six-event NHRA Countdown to 1 for the 2009 Full Throttle Championship. Qualifying coverage can be seen on ESPN2 on Sunday, Sept. 27, beginning at 12:15 a.m. Eastern. Final eliminations coverage gets underway on Sunday, Sept. 27, with NHRA Race Day starting at 11 a.m., and a repeat broadcast of qualifying gets underway at 11:30 a.m. A three-hour telecast of final eliminations kicks off at 7 p.m. Eastern.

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