Allen Johnson
I got into Charlotte on Tuesday for the Inaugural NHRA Carolinas Nationals. I took my wife, Pam, just to enjoy the grand opening festivities. On Tuesday night we got to know track owner Bruton Smith and his son Marcus, and my wife took pictures with them. I took her down on the track and let her meet Michael Waltrip. We just sort of enjoyed the whole ambience of being at a brand-new track, with NASCAR and NHRA drivers coming together.
On Wednesday I went to downtown Charlotte for a press conference for the start of the NHRA Countdown to 1 playoffs. It was sort of like the same deal we did last year in Vegas. It’s always enjoyable to take part in that with all the media and all the other drivers, and know that you are one of the elites. We got to walk around downtown Charlotte and had a good meal, and then we went back to the hotel and my wife and I had massages and facials, the whole deal! We just relaxed.
On Thursday we played in a golf tournament to raise money for Doug Herbert's charity organization called BRAKES (Be Responsible And Keep Everyone Safe). Pam enjoyed that. Then Thursday night we went to a dinner auction for BRAKES, where I was one of the celebrities folks could dine with. I really support the BRAKES efforts. When Doug’s young sons lost their lives in a car accident, it really tore me up. That was one of my fears when my two daughters first started driving. At the auction I was the high bidder on the most expensive item there. I bought a crew shirt that Dale Earnhardt’s crew chief wore at the Daytona 500 in 2001 the day Dale was killed. He autographed it and I donated $10,000 to BRAKES.
During the golf outing one of the guys in my group was Jay Forman, who played Nebraska football. Three of the four years he played there they won the national championship. Then he went on to Houston for five years, was traded around and just retired at the age of 32! So that was kind of a thrill to play golf and talk about all of his goings on in football.
Then it was time to go racing. I couldn’t wait to get on the track because it was so new. We knew we could kick some butt, but Friday didn’t go the way we wanted. The first run we had an electrical problem and the car missed all the way down the track. The second run we were No. 1 to the eight-mile mark and No. 2 at the 1000 foot mark and then the motor broke! So going into Saturday we weren’t even qualified.
We put the motor in on Saturday that we had run at Indy, where we took the No. 1 qualifier spot. We were already behind the eight ball and couldn’t afford to get too aggressive, so we had to settle for the fifth spot in the final qualifying. The last run of the day on Saturday qualifying we were either second or third best for the session. We had a good setup going into Sunday and we felt confident, but we just got a little too passive on that first run. The Mopar/J&J Racing Dodge Stratus R/T is running great and we’re making awesome power from our Mopar HEMI® engine. We’ve just got to make the right decision on Sunday. We’ll get this turned around. There are five more races left in the Countdown playoffs, and we’ve got a shot.