The 46-year-old Buford, Ga. resident came into Sunday's eliminator at Maple Grove Raceway qualified in the No. 11 position, and a made a strong charge toward his first victory of the season before losing to Johnny Gray in the semifinal round.

Johnson defeated Greg Stanfield in round one on hole shot with a 6.717 e.t. to a 6.710-second run for Stanfield. Johnson's nearly perfect light of .001 at the starting line gave him a winning margin at the finish stripe of approximately three feet.

In round two against Warren Johnson, the ACDelco driver took his second win light of the day, but suffered mechanical problems that carried over into the semifinals.

"We broke a retainer and that's the noise that I heard that kind of chewed up some stuff in the second round," commented Johnson after his winning 7.177-second run. "I pushed the clutch in, and a nut went flying and it's still down in the motor somewhere. We did some "MacGyver" stuff to get it ready for the semifinals. I filled areas with thick grease so the nut couldn't get out. I think it worked, though. It was in the cam tunnel and the grease did the job."

Against Johnny Gray, Johnson again took a big lead at the starting line, but it wasn't enough to hold off the Dodge driver who crossed the stripe with a 6.664-second run to a 6.738 e.t.

"It was good to go rounds today," Johnson said. "It was a tight race in the first round against Stanfield, and then Johnny Gray, I think he's had my number for the last two years. It will come around. I'm thinking we can do some damage these last seven races.

"We have to pick up the pace to the first 300-feet, that's all there is to it. We've been fast this year but we're still looking to go faster. It's a consistency issue and we've been missing it there. We made some subtle changes to the car and it just acted up. It's not happy right now, but we're narrowing it down to what it's going to take at these last few races to make it fast."

The next stop on the tour is the 55th Mac Tools U.S. Nationals on Sept. 2 - 7, at O'Reilly Raceway Park in Indianapolis. It is the 18th race on the 24-event NHRA Full Throttle Series tour, and the final contest before the top 10 in each of the Pro categories are locked in for the six-event championship race off.

I feel good about my driving, I feel good about the changes we're making to the car, and I'm confident that we can get on top of this program," Johnson said. "Mike Edwards is pretty fast right now, and my hat goes off to those guys, they're doing a good job and making good runs, but I feel we can close the gap and make it close."

Courtesy of Jeff Romack