Tommy Johnson Jr. Qualifies No. 1 for the AAA Texas NHRA FallNationals
ENNIS, TX – Tommy Johnson Jr. will start race day at the AAA Texas NHRA FallNationals from the No. 1 spot after 
powering the Make-A-Wish Dodge Charger R/T to a 3.918-second at 321.73-mph pass in the fourth and final qualifying session.
The No. 1 qualifier is the sixteenth of Johnson’s career, first of 2018 and first at Texas Motorplex. He finished Friday night as the provisional No. 1 qualifier after running a 3.958 E.T. in Q2 but watched as his top-seeded run was ousted from the No. 1 spot by Bob Tasca III’s 3.950-second pass during the third qualifying session on Saturday. Johnson and the Make-A-Wish Foundation team fired back by posting a blistering 3.918 E.T. in the sweltering Texas heat during Q4 to reclaim the pole position.
“In the car driving, I could tell it was a good run, it felt really good,” said Johnson who claimed seven out of 12 possible bonus points over the course of the weekend. “With the conditions out here, I thought we could squeak a 94 out of it, maybe a high 93 but a 91 is pretty impressive. I was shocked, I couldn’t believe it went 91. John (Collins, crew chief) seemed awful confident on the starting line and now I know why. Obviously, he had full intentions of taking (the No. 1 spot) back.”
After a solid Friday/Saturday outing, Johnson feels confident in his team’s abilities to make it a long Sunday of going rounds, noting that the Make-A-Wish team had the advantage of using Q3 and Q4 as a means to gather information.
“Q3 was an experiment to try something and see what we could get away with, and it made it easy to address the issue. With the little bit of cloud cover here and there, it was still pretty warm during Q4 so I didn’t know if there was a 91 out there. John mentioned he was trying to run a low 90 last night and didn’t get that, so I think he went back and worked on last night’s Q2 run for Q4, and it did what he told it to.
“My boys are pretty happy. Starting from No. 1 helps boost morale. You’re in the fight to try and win this championship. The better you do, the more confidence you have, and you seem to do better and better with the more confidence you get. For me, going up there knowing you have a really good car, it takes some pressure off. I know I can just go up there and race.”
The Make-A-Wish Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car team will start race day by taking on No. 16 qualifier Terry Haddock in round one as they seek their first victory of the season.
Qualified: No. 1 (lane choice)
The Competition: No. 16 Terry Haddock
The Results:
Q1: 4.062 E.T. at 312.64 MPH (One bonus point for third quickest run of the session)
Q2: 3.958 E.T. at 323.66 MPH (Three bonus points for quickest run of the session)
Q3: 4.750 E.T. at 167.76 MPH
Q4: 3.918 E.T. at 321.73 MPH (Three bonus points for quickest run of the session)
Bonus Points: Seven
Driver Information:
Top Fuel:
ANTRON BROWN
Driver of the Matco Tools ‘Tools for the Cause’/U.S. Army Top Fuel Dragster
Qualified: No. 11
The Competition: No. 6 Doug Kalitta
The Results:
Q1: 6.082 E.T. at 112.58 MPH
Q2: 3.817 E.T. at 321.27 MPH
Q3: 3.810 E.T. at 306.60 MPH
Q4: 3.814 E.T. at 322.27 MPH
Quotable:
“We’ve got a consistent car, for sure. We’re trying to do more than that, honestly. We wanted to run a 75 (3.75 seconds) and it didn’t do what we wanted it to do. But, in hindsight, we got through all of our little hiccups and different deals that this car has been throwing at us and we’re just going to stay persistent about what we’ve been doing. We’re going to keep working hard and getting after it and tomorrow’s race day. I’m really confident in my team. We know how to race and we know what we need to do. We’re just going to keep our heads down and get to work. We’re racing Dougie (Kalitta) first round, a guy we need to race, and we’re going to do what we know how to do and get after it and try to make it happen.”
LEAH PRITCHETT
Driver of the Mopar Dodge Top Fuel Dragster
Qualified: No. 9
The Competition: No. 8 Kebin Kinsley
The Results:
Q1: 4.004 E.T. at 274.50 MPH
Q2: 3.808 E.T. at 324.51 MPH
Q3: 3.829 E.T. at 324.05 MPH
Q4: 7.747 E.T. at 92.73 MPH
Quotable:
“We were coming into this race excited about the new front half of our race car, which was necessary to half. We went after it really strong in Q1 but unfortunately we were slipping the tire too much on the top end. So we went to the line for Q2 and I’m super proud of our Mopar/U.S. Army team for making the cooperative adjustments that our car needed. We needed to get down the track. Q2 really sets the tone for the weekend and we needed that long, strong, quick pass to be able to work off of. Overall, we’ll take it. The most important thing this weekend is continuing to focus on ourselves. There’s still a lot of R&D going into our program that we’re putting out onto the track and this is the time for it to shine and for this team to shine. We’ve got our heads held high and I know for sure that things are getting a lot better. I’m feeling very confident with the progress we are making. Don’t count this team out because we plan to keep charging hard.”
TONY SCHUMACHER
Driver of the U.S. Army Top Fuel Dragster
Qualified: No. 3 (lane choice)
The Competition: No. 14 Shawn Reed
The Results:
Q1: 4.063 E.T. at 292.33 MPH
Q2: 3.873 E.T. at 311.99 MPH
Q3: 3.840 E.T. at 323.58 MPH
Q4: 3.745 E.T. at 329.58 MPH (Two bonus points for second quickest run of the session)
Bonus Points: Two
Quotable:
“The guys realized there was something a little strange going on with the water particles in the atmosphere and they made some changes before that final run. Mike (Neff, crew chief) and Phil (Shuler, assistant crew chief) just made a great call and said we were going to go after it. There was just no reason to go up and try to run in the 80s. We had to step it up and get some power up. It was a great run for the Army car. It sure helped to get us a good qualifying spot and lane choice tomorrow. That was a good way to finish up our qualifying effort here and gives us some good momentum going into race day.”
Funny Car:
JACK BECKMAN
Driver of the Infinite Hero Foundation Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat
Qualified: No. 5 (lane choice)
The Competition: No. 12 Courtney Force
The Results:
Q1: 4.030 E.T. at 309.49 MPH (Three bonus points for third quickest run of the session)
Q2: 3.986 E.T. at 312.57 MPH
Q3: 4.061 E.T. at 308.35 MPH
Q4: 3.968 E.T. at 316.52 MPH (Two bonus points for second quickest run of the session)
Bonus Points: Five
Quotable:
“Really happy with our qualifying. In the first session we were low E.T. even though we dropped a cylinder. Second session we improved, but dropped a cylinder. Third qualifying session, another dropped a cylinder and nobody panicked. The guys kept making incremental changes. Fourth qualifying session, it ran on all eight cylinders until it spun a little bit at the top end and ran our best E.T. of the weekend. We got bonus points during half of the qualifying sessions. We’re solid top half and maybe more importantly, now we have that opportunity to control some of our destiny. Because we lost first round the first two races, we have to rely on the higher positioned cars to go out early. We have the position to do that with a Courtney Force matchup first round so it’s up to us to execute and get four round wins tomorrow.”
RON CAPPS
Driver of the NAPA AUTO PARTS Dodge Charger R/T
Qualified: No. 7 (lane choice)
The Competition: No. 10 John Force
The Results:
Q1: 5.005 E.T. at 152.78 MPH
Q2: 4.012 E.T. at 317.05 MPH
Q3: 4.139 E.T. at 243.55 MPH
Q4: 3.986 E.T. at 317.12 MPH
Quotable:
“Great Q4 run. That put us back in the top half. The car was on a better run Q3, it got a little inside on me and I think had that one made it down it would’ve been closer to pole position. I think (crew chief Rahn) Tobler watched a few cars in front of us and may have backed it down a tiny bit just to be sure. That’s classic Rahn Tobler, just making sure we get a run to put in the books and give us information for tomorrow. Bottom line is, we’ve got to make up some ground tomorrow. This track has been great for us lately; we went to the final round the last two years. I’ve gotten a win here in the past, just haven’t done it in the era of the black Texas Motorplex cowboy hat. We’ve got USA Compression, a great American company based down in Austin, Texas that’s been a partner of ours. They’ve got a lot of people here hanging out and nothing would be better than to share a winner’s circle with them and our local NAPA folks. We’ll pour some more Pennzoil in it and get after it tomorrow.”
MATT HAGAN
Driver of the Pennzoil Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat
Qualified: No. 15
The Competition: No. 2 Bob Tasca III
The Results:
Q1: 5.649 E.T. at 124.45 MPH
Q2: 4.867 E.T. at 160.73 MPH
Q3: 4.195 E.T. at 250.88 MPH
Q4: 4.169 E.T. at 255.92 MPH
Quotable:
“Got to be in it to win it. We’ve got this Pennzoil Hellcat body and we’ve got four runs to look at to work out for tomorrow. We’ll do the best we can with what we’ve got.”
Factory Stock Showdown Series:
MARK PAWUK
Driver of the Empaco Equipment Mopar Dodge Challenger Drag Pak
Qualified: No. 9
The Results:
Qualifying:
Q1: 8.269 E.T. at 165.72 MPH
Q2: 15.677 E.T. at 76.62 MPH
Q3: Cancelled
LEAH PRITCHETT
Driver of the Mopar Dodge Challenger Drag Pak
Qualified: No. 10
The Results:
Qualifying:
Q1: 8.397 E.T. at 164.35 MPH
Q2: 10.945 E.T. at 143.67 MPH
Q3: Cancelled
