Looking Back, Looking Ahead
Inspiration can strike at any time and at any place. For Pro Stockdriver Kurt Johnson, the moment came in an airport waiting room in theBahamas.
"My wife and I took a short vacation after the end of the season, andI was reading a newspaper in the airport," Johnson recalled. "I saw anACDelco advertisem*nt that congratulated Jeff Gordon on winning his fourthNASCAR championship after he struggled to a ninth-place finish just oneyear earlier.
"Then it hit me: If Gordon can go from ninth to first in one year, thenso can I. That's my goal for 2002."
Thus inspired by his racing muse, the 38-year-old driver of theACDelco Cavalier took a look back at 2001 -- the championship season thatdidn't happen.
Most racers would have been thrilled to have a year like the one thatKurt Johnson experienced. He won the season-opening Winternationals,appeared in two final rounds, set the national elapsed time and speedrecords, turned the fastest speed at eight events, set four track speedrecords, and finished ninth in the championship standings -- the ninthtop-10 finish of his nine-year career.
But Kurt is the son of six-time Pro Stock champion Warren "TheProfessor" Johnson, and he grades himself on a very steep curve. In theJohnson household, excellence is expected.
In his school days, Kurt had to maintain an "A" average as aprerequisite for going to the races. He never missed the mark -- and henever missed a race. Johnson applies that same exacting standard to hisracing operation.
"You try your best, and at the end of the day you wonder, how can wework so hard and not do as well as we should have?" Kurt said. "Maybe wehad some bad luck along the way, but we need to make our own luck by beingbetter prepared, being more consistent, and being in control of ourdestiny.
"Pro Stock is an extremely competitive class right now," he continued."We need a performance advantage. The only way we're going to get one is towork harder and smarter than the competition."
When K.J. dominated the first race of the season, he was tabbed by manyas a potential champion. He won 11 rounds in the first six events and wassolidly in second place (behind his father) in the championship race. Butas the weather got warmer, K.J.'s hot streak cooled. Back-to-back DNQs inTopeka and Chicago and nine first-round losses effectively ended hischampionship dream. When he failed to qualify for the season finale inPomona, he was denied a chance to defend the Auto Club NHRA Finals titlethat he won in 2000.
"We're still trying to figure out whether our performance fell offor everyone else's picked up," Kurt conceded. "We changed to a new enginedyno in April, and maybe it's giving us bad information. Our horsepowernumbers are better than they've ever been, but we're not running the backhalf of race track as fast as we should."
Johnson still relishes the highlights of the past season: "Winningthe Winternationals with our brand-new Cavalier, setting the nationalrecords in Chicago, and seeing Dad win his 86th national event and hissixth championship -- those were all important to me," Kurt said. "The daywe set both the elapsed time and top speed records was really a tribute tothe ACDelco team. The road crew came up with the right suspension andchassis setup to get the car down the track quickly, and the guys at theshop gave me the power to run big speed."
One lesson that Kurt learned from the Professor is not to dwell onthe past. He is already looking ahead to 2002, when he will have a pair ofnew ACDelco Cavaliers in his racing stable. Johnson's team is puttingthe finishing touches on a new Don Ness-built double-rail chassis, andJerry Haas is constructing a second Cavalier to K.J.'s specifications.
"I'm excited about my new cars -- as excited as I was about gettingmy first Cavalier," Kurt reported. "The Haas car is a hybrid that combineswhat we learned from this year's design with what we knew from my lastCamaro. That car won six races in 2000, so we have good data on chassissetups. I think we will be a step ahead next season."
While the team prepares a brace of new race cars, Kurt will continueto refine the GM Drag Race Competition Engines that power both his andhis father's machines.
"We have several new engine combinations that we will test overthe winter," he reported. "You don't find 15 or 20 horsepower these days;it's one or two at a time. But over a couple of months, they add up."
Kurt Johnson has been involved in racing since he was old enough topick up a wrench. He has celebrated championships with his family and hehas endured winless seasons. But with the unalloyed optimism that is thetrademark of real racers, he is looking forward to quicker elapsed times,faster speeds, more victories -- and perhaps that elusive firstchampionship in 2002.
-GM Racing-
