Woodburn Regional No Piece of Cake for Ahten

Woodburn, OR – When you get to the drag strip on Friday for a Regional event the last thing you expect is to have your first qualifying run Sunday at 4:30pm and first round an hour and a half later. That’s just what happened to Johnny Ahten last weekend at Woodburn Dragstrip. Friday and Saturday were a wash-out and Sunday turned into a whirlwind.

“Our whole weekend got compressed into two hours of racing,” said Ahten. “On the bright side, the truck and trailer is well organized because of all the down time. Looking at the track from our pit was like a kid staring at a piece of chocolate cake they can’t eat.”

When it finally came time to make their only qualifying run, the Island Renovations / Combust Filters team made it a good one. A 5.41/261.32 pass gave Ahten his second number three qualifying spot in a row. Turn-around time was tight and the Ahten Racing team only had a short time to make the first round of eliminations. In fact, the other cars in Top Alcohol Dragster class were already in the lanes when Ahten pulled out of the pits. Lay in wait was CleanBoost Performance Motor Oil teammate Garrett Bateman. As the two nitro-injected dragsters left the line, Ahten grabbed the lead and was ahead at the 330ft mark. At 2.4 seconds into the run, the Stump Puller had a cylinder lose fire, and at 3.5 seconds another joined in. At the finish, Johnny’s 5.372 / 258.84 was not enough to hold off Bateman’s hard charging 5.274 / 272.47.

“We are just going to keep refining what we are doing,” said Ahten.”After our eighteen hour drive home from Woodburn, we began the preparations for four more races. First we have the Vegas National event, then the make-up from the rained-out spring Vegas Regional, followed by the scheduled Vegas2 Regional, ending with the finals at Pomona. We have some exciting announcements coming up for these races, so stay tuned,” added Ahten. Stay informed by visiting: facebook.com/JohnnyAhtenRacing, and on Twitter and Instagram at: @Ahtenracing