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Johnson Singing The Blues In Memphis After First Round Loss
Monday, August 21, 2006
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Johnson Singing The Blues In Memphis After
First Round Loss
MEMPHIS, TN 8/20/06 Last weekend’s Lucas Oil Nationals in Minnesota included
one happy man in the form of Steve Johnson. His first final round appearance of
the 2006 season had the Birmingham, Alabama rider figuratively singing an upbeat
tune. Now, after a tough first round loss in the O’Reilly Mid-South Nationals,
Johnson is singing the blues, for which Memphis is famous.
“I might be feeling a little down,” admitted the popular Snap-on Tools
Suzuki handler, “but by tomorrow morning I’ll be all smiles again.
The U.S. Nationals are just two weeks away, and we’re the defending champions.
“Losing to Chip Ellis in the first round was tough, but you’ve got
to hand it to the guy. He had a near-perfect Reaction Time, and that, combined
with his motorcycle being a tick quicker than ours, is all it took. It was his
day today, just like I hope it’ll be ours at Indy.”
Johnson acknowledges that a pinch more horsepower is all his Suzuki needs to make
it a top contender, and he’s hoping that appears in time for the U.S. Nationals.
“Right now we’re a couple of hundredths of a second from where we
want to be, but I’ve got complete confidence in our team, and our crew chief,
Mark Peiser,” Johnson said.
Johnson had a somewhat conservative Reaction Time against Ellis of 0.029 seconds,
a full two hundredths of second slower, but as he said, “Coming into the
race against Chip I knew his bike had been quicker than ours in qualifying, but
at the same time I didn’t want to throw away our chances by redlighting.”
Photo By Matt Polito, www.dragbikephotos.com
Johnson’s team is likely to head to Indianapolis for pre-U.S. Nationals
testing early in the week, but in the meantime they’ll remain in Memphis
to watch the remainder of eliminations tomorrow morning, as the race was rained
out before the first round of Pro Stock Motorcycle had even been completed.
“I guess I could say I wish I was one of the guys who still had a first
round race,” he said, “but the outcome probably would have been
the same.
“This just makes me more determined than ever to run hard at Indy.”
Results:
Qualifying:
Session #1: 7.199/185.95 #14 (7.231 Bump)
Session #2: 7.170/186.41 #12 (7.186 Bump)
Session #3: 7.276/182.66 #12 (7.186 Bump)
Eliminations;
Round #1 0.029 R.T. 7.238/184.55 lost to Chip Ellis
0.009 R.T. 7.227/182.60
Next: NHRA U.S. Nationals, O’Reilly Raceway Park, Indianapolis,
Indiana September 1-4
For fun you can check out the copy on Johnson’s web page, www.stevejohnsonracing.com
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