{"id":29380,"date":"2016-08-11T17:21:16","date_gmt":"2016-08-12T00:21:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=29380"},"modified":"2018-08-16T12:36:14","modified_gmt":"2018-08-16T19:36:14","slug":"tommy-johnson-jr-on-the-nhra-western-swing-part-iv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/tommy-johnson-jr-on-the-nhra-western-swing-part-iv\/","title":{"rendered":"Tommy Johnson Jr on the NHRA Western Swing, Part IV"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"16SeattlePhoto5\"<\/p>\n

This is the final segment of RacingJunk.com following along with Tommy Johnson, Jr., driver of the Don Schumacher Racing Make-A-Wish Dodge Charger R\/T Funny Car, as he went through\u00a0the NHRA Western Swing.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The Protect the Harvest NHRA Northwest Nationals produced a first round win against long-time rival, John Force, thus ending his bid for his second Western Swing mini-championship.\u00a0 His matchup with his DSR teammate Ron Capps in the quarterfinals proved although you have to run in the 3.80s nowadays, sometimes even that isn\u2019t enough.\u00a0 Johnson roared to a 3.899 second pass, but was bested by Capps with a 3.865-second elapsed time to win the round.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

Johnson arrived in Seattle on Wednesday in time to spend some time with Mark Lyle\u2019s family before his memorial that was held at Pacific Raceways at sundown on Thursday\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

Part IV:\u00a0Post Western Swing,<\/h3>\n

Don Schumacher Racing Headquarters, Brownsburg, Indiana<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cMark and I became very good friends from all the time I spent at the starting line when I did the track prep for DSR. He\u2019s probably one of the most special guys I\u2019ve been around.\u00a0 When I got to Seattle, I went over to Mark\u2019s house, had dinner with his wife and a few family friends on Wednesday and then on Thursday was able to take part of his memorial at the track.\u00a0 Just by the outpouring from people showed the sign of what a great guy he was.\u00a0 It was more people than they could fit into the venue than they had for it.\u00a0 It\u2019s just a tribute to the great guy he was.<\/p>\n

It was a special moment and I\u2019m glad I was a part of it.\u00a0 It was a sad moment, too, but at the same time, it made you happy that you knew such a great guy.<\/p>\n

In the race, my qualifying on Friday was impressive, but, yet, it wasn\u2019t.\u00a0 Right now Funny Car is probably the most competitive class out there.\u00a0 To run a 3.90 in qualifying and to end up 10th<\/sup> — a year ago we would be jumping up and down.\u00a0 Now, it\u2019s like \u2018huh\u2019.\u00a0 They told me on the radio on Q3 that I ran a 3.902 and I was disappointed to say, \u2018that\u2019s it\u2019.\u00a0 No one would be happy with that.<\/p>\n

The conditions they way there were in Seattle and the track has really come around.\u00a0 The improvements they\u2019ve made over the years where it\u2019s such a great facility now.\u00a0 The surface is great.\u00a0 The numbers were stellar like when Del Worsham reset the record at 3.83; that was unbelievable.\u00a0 I\u2019m a fan of the sport, I love the sport, and to see those numbers, I was having a ball watching that team and what was going on.\u00a0 It was just unfortunate for us that we missed it by just a little bit.<\/p>\n

What got us in this situation was we ran out of clutch discs after we won in Bristol.\u00a0 We had to start over with a completely brand new batch of discs.\u00a0 We\u2019re still learning it.\u00a0 We\u2019re making progress and I was glad to see come Sunday that we were back in the 3.80s and get our car\u2019s performance coming around.\u00a0 We\u2019re hoping for bigger and better numbers for ourselves.\u00a0 With the Countdown coming on with six to go, that\u2019s the time to compete.\u00a0 We\u2019re getting there.<\/p>\n

It was kind of funny during eliminations the last two years; I knocked off Jack Beckman\u2019s hopes of a sweep last year in Seattle beating him in the semi-finals.\u00a0 This year we were up against John Force and won the first round.\u00a0 To be able to knock him off preventing his sweep, breaking it up was just what we wanted.\u00a0 It\u2019s almost like we won the race.\u00a0 At the same time, we know we didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

It was going to be a really big run and we knew that going into Sunday.\u00a0 Force has been on a roll, it was going to be a tough race, and the guys did a great job.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t a win like last year, but we\u2019re still pretty proud of that.\u00a0 It just shows we\u2019re a very competitive car.\u00a0 Although we didn\u2019t win the race, we\u2019re still somebody to beat.<\/p>\n

Last year, I think we peaked a little too soon and finished third in the championship and this year, it\u2019s coming around.<\/p>\n

At the same time, I felt a little disappointed that we came into the Western Swing fifth in points and came out eighth, only 71 behind Hagan now in fifth.\u00a0 We\u2019re right there.\u00a0 One round here or there makes a big difference.<\/p>\n

It all boils down to the last six races.\u00a0 Yeah, I would like to be in the top five to start the Countdown, but if we\u2019re not, it\u2019s not that big of a deal.\u00a0 We\u2019ll reset the points at Charlotte and go from there.\u00a0 I\u2019m still comfortable where we are.<\/p>\n

Now we\u2019re going into Brainerd and it could mineshaft conditions, again.\u00a0 We learned a lot last weekend.\u00a0 The changes we had to make are starting to show some signs of getting a handle on them with our performance picking up.\u00a0 After Bristol, we ran out of clutch discs and had to switch.\u00a0 It\u2019s taken this long for us to figure these out and the performance is coming around now.\u00a0 Last year, we were runner-up in Brainerd against Robert Hight.\u00a0 Our car shook in the finals.\u00a0 It\u2019s where we kind of peaked reaching three finals in a row for us.\u00a0 This year, I think our momentum is starting to swing that way.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been in the finals up there a lot and I love going to Brainerd.\u00a0 It\u2019s one of my favorite tracks.\u00a0 If the conditions play out with a winning hand, I just hope Brainerd wrote their record book in pencil cause if it\u2019s in pen it\u2019s going to have to be rewritten again.\u201d<\/p>\n