{"id":28919,"date":"2016-07-21T13:29:24","date_gmt":"2016-07-21T20:29:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=28919"},"modified":"2018-08-16T12:36:40","modified_gmt":"2018-08-16T19:36:40","slug":"tommy-johnson-jr-on-the-nhra-western-swing-mopar-mile-high-nationals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/tommy-johnson-jr-on-the-nhra-western-swing-mopar-mile-high-nationals\/","title":{"rendered":"Tommy Johnson Jr on the NHRA Western Swing–Mopar Mile-High Nationals"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_20160721_070821\"<\/em><\/p>\n

Photos:<\/strong> Courtesy of NHRA<\/p>\n

For the next four weeks, RacingJunk.com\u00a0will be following Tommy Johnson, Jr., driver of the Don Schumacher Racing\u2019s Make-A-Wish Dodge Charger R\/T Funny Car , on the NHRA Western Swing. Have questions for Tommy Johnson Jr? Find us on Facebook or Twitter and ask away!<\/em><\/p>\n

Part 1:\u00a0The Mopar Mile-High Nationals, Bandimere Speedway, Morrison, Colorado<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, everybody thinks you just show up at the racetrack and go race some cars, but there\u2019s a lot of work involved.\u00a0 I flew out of Indy at 6 o\u2019clock in the morning and arrived, landing in Denver and was picked right up from the airport and was on the way to radio interviews.\u00a0 By 8:30, I was already doing interviews and from there we went down to Colorado Springs for more media to help promote the race.<\/p>\n

It was a full day of interviews and we finally got back around 5 o\u2019clock back at the hotel and ran into my guys.\u00a0 We all went to eat Mexican and hung out for a while.\u00a0 Then we went to our assistant crew chief, Rip Reynolds daughter\u2019s house to watch the NASCAR Truck race.<\/p>\n

After that, I went back to the hotel to finally get some sleep.\u00a0 I think I had been up for 21 hours and was out of nitro at that point.<\/p>\n

\"175-TommyJohnsonJr-Sunday-Bristol[1]\"<\/p>\n

You get some sleep and then it starts all over again.\u00a0 Of course, this being a Mopar race and I\u2019m a Mopar driver, so there are a lot of activities planned.\u00a0 Thursday, we\u2019ll be at the track\u2019s press conference for the luncheon.\u00a0 Once that\u2019s over, I\u2019m heading to Golden for the Mopar Block Party.\u00a0 For us, it\u2019s the biggest media and fan event we do all year.\u00a0 It\u2019s a great event and I invite fans to come out.\u00a0 Over the years, the event has grown and grown.\u00a0 You can\u2019t believe the turnout they get every year.\u00a0 It\u2019s probably one of my favorite events of the year to get to the Mopar Block Party.<\/p>\n

Of course, I\u2019ve raced Bandimere Speedway for many years when I was living in Iowa.\u00a0 I think one of the first years I raced there was the ET Bracket Finals and as a kid, I started drag racing motorcycles.\u00a0 I came to the Bracket Finals in the motorcycle class probably in \u201981 or \u201982.\u00a0 Then I raced at Bandimere in the Super Gas class in 1984, then later Alcohol Funny Car, and then Top Fuel and now Funny Car.\u00a0 I feel like I\u2019ve been coming to Bandimere forever.\u00a0 It almost feels like a home track.<\/p>\n

\"2016_Tommy_Johnson%20Jr[1]\"<\/p>\n

When you really get down to it, it\u2019s funny that Denver is such a hard event.\u00a0 Fighting the altitude, we change so many things on the car.\u00a0 So, we come in here and it can be a really good weekend or a really bad weekend.\u00a0 It\u2019s kind of a gamble.\u00a0 We have a very small book of data because we only race in this altitude once a year.\u00a0 We\u2019ve been on some upswings and we have been running very well.\u00a0 You come into Denver and hope for the best.\u00a0 You can\u2019t get upset if it\u2019s a bad weekend.\u00a0 There\u2019s going to be a lot of people with a bad weekend and only a few that really hit the tune up.\u00a0 If it turns out to be a great time, then you need to take advantage of it and try to move yourself up.<\/p>\n

You kind of come into Denver with the mentality of it\u2019s a crapshoot.\u00a0 You just don\u2019t know what is going to happen.\u00a0 You use it for a wash of a race and then go on to Sonoma and get back to normal.\u00a0 Your attitude coming into the event has a lot to do with it.\u00a0 I like going to Bandimere just because I\u2019ve been coming here for so many years and have seemed to do well.\u00a0 A lot of guys and teams dread coming to this race.\u00a0 If you can come in here and have a good weekend and move on, it can help you a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

This weekend\u2019s NHRA live event will be the first on FOX Network starting at 3 p.m. EDT on Sunday.\u00a0 Friday night qualifying starts the weekend with a live qualifying show at 8 p.m.\u00a0 Saturday night\u2019s final qualifying show airs at 11 p.m. on FOX Sports 1.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ride along with us for the next four weeks as we follow Funny Car Driver Tommy Johnson Jr through the NHRA Western Swing.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":28923,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3465,17,3470,3399],"tags":[3815,2,38,547,7,1092,956],"class_list":["post-28919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-guest-column","category-news","category-nhra","tag-2016-nhra-mello-yello-drag-racing-series","tag-drag-racing","tag-funny-car","tag-jay-wells","tag-nhra","tag-nhra-western-swing","tag-tommy-johnson-jr"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Tommy-Johnson_Feature.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-7wr","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28919"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28927,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28919\/revisions\/28927"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}