Marathon Petroleum’s Allen Johnson Races to Quarterfinals in Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS – Allen Johnson powered the Marathon Petroleum/J&J Racing Dodge Dart to the quarterfinal round at the 17th annual NHRA Nationals in Las Vegas.

Johnson came into raceday in the No. 11 spot and had a first round matchup against Erica Enders. Johnson went straight down the boulevard at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway with a victorious 6.716-second pass at 202.82 mph over Enders’ troubled 7.026, 163.49.

“She broke a motor I think,” Johnson said at the top end about competitor Erica Enders. “We’ve still got something wrong with the car and if we can figure it out before second round, we can run right with them.”

Second round, Johnson took on Bo Butner. Johnson grabbed over three-thousandths of a second advantage over Butner at the starting line but immediately found himself in trouble with tire shake and he had to abort the run. Butner’s 6.695, 204.35 advanced to the semifinal round.

“We were first pair out and we just simply missed the setup right there,” he added. “We blew the tires off. If we could’ve had the same run as round one, we could’ve won with the starting line advantage I had on him. We had a good car all weekend but it kind of bit us right there.”