Allen Johnson Bounces Back in Saturday Qualifying for Favorable Raceday Momentum

CONCORD, N.C. (April 19, 2016) – Allen Johnson, driver of the Marathon Petroleum Corporation/J&J Racing Pro Stock Dodge Dart GT, will enter raceday in the No. 9 spot at the Sixth annual NHRA Four-Wide Nationals presented by Lowes Foods.

With questionable weather all Friday, Johnson wasn’t positive any runs would be made that day. During the first qualifying run, Johnson experienced massive tire shake at the hit of the throttle and aborted the run; He clocked in with a 12.924-second pass at 88.85 mph. Like Johnson predicted, Mother Nature showed up and cancelled the second session of qualifying that evening.

For Saturday’s first session, Johnson came out swinging and bounced back from Friday’s tire shake with a 6.638, 208.65. With a positive baseline, the Marathon team was able to tune it to a very consistent 6.634, 208.14 in the final round of qualifying.

Johnson will be No. 9 going into raceday and Shane Tucker, Greg Anderson and Chris McGaha will join him in his first round quad.

“I feel good about how the car is running,” said Johnson. “We made a good run in Q3 [final qualifying]. The coolest thing is when we missed the first round because of shaking, the team really bounced back together. We really bounced back and got better today. We’ll keep digging tomorrow and hopefully we can get this Dodge Dart to the winner circle.”