On Saturday at the Virginia NHRA Nationals, Kurt Johnson went the quickest and fastest he'd ever
been in a Pro Stock Car when he qualified his ACDelco Chevrolet in the No. 2 spot with a 6.546 e.t.
at 210.64 mph. But on Sunday, a case of severe tire shake in Johnson's round-one matchup with John
Nobile, sent the veteran competitor to an early exit.
"It shook and the tire got all distorted," Johnson said. "It grabbed the tire, spun it up, and it
was looking good, but it must have gotten that right side too distorted because it started shaking.
The left side was probably all right, but it drove me to the right and I couldn't see where I was
going. I still had my foot in the throttle, and I knew I was on the center line, I lifted, was on
the centerline, and I was almost in his lane. It was already out of control a half second into the
run.
"The air got a little bit better and we compensated with gear, but that was the only change we made
and that was because of the weather. We didn't change tires, we didn't change clutch, we didn't
change anything around.
"I was pretty pumped up coming into today. We didn't make a completely smooth run last night, and I
was concerned that going out there under different conditions today that it might not be as good as
it was last night. Last night wasn't perfect, but it was good enough to run fast. That kind us
pumps us up knowing we can run that fast, but we have to be able to do it consistently.
"That's two races in a row that we've shaken on race day and we're going to have to do something
about it."
The Pro Stock category was won by Mike Edwards who defeated Greg Anderson in the final round on a
holeshot. Edwards was .008 (thousandths) of a second quicker on the starting line than Anderson,
which enabled Edwards' 6.526 e.t. at 211.43 mph run to better Anderson's 6.522-second run by .004
of a second at the finish line. Edwards also collected an additional 20 points when he set a
national e.t. record in round one of 6.509 seconds.
The Funny Car category was won by Del Worsham who defeated Tim Wilkerson in the finals. Brandon
Bernstein defeated Antron Brown in the Top Fuel title round.
The next stop on the tour is the 9th annual NHRA Las Vegas Nationals on Oct. 29 - Nov. 1 at The
Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Johnson won the event in 2005.
