Runner-Up Finish for Greg Anderson in K&N Horsepower Challenge
Source: GM
Jun 29, 2008 - 2:57:19 PM
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NORWALK, Ohio, June 28, 2008 – There were actually two winners after the final round of today’s 24th annual K&N Horsepower Challenge at Summit Motorsports Park. On the track, Allen Johnson used a perfect .000 reaction time to get a holeshot win and a $50,000 check in defeating Greg Anderson, and off the track, race fan Ed Merry Jr. from Virginia Beach, Va., was the lucky winner of a 2008 Pontiac G6 GXP as part of the K&N Horsepower Challenge Sweepstakes.
The K&N Horsepower Challenge is a non-points bonus Pro Stock event held in conjunction with this weekend’s second annual Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals. The race-within-a-race features the top eight Pro Stock drivers who have accumulated the most points in qualifying during the past year in the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series with $50,000 going to the winner. Drivers began earning points for the 2008 K&N Horsepower Challenge at last year’s Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals and continued to accumulate points through last weekend’s Lucas Oil NHRA SuperNationals at Englishtown, N.J.
In today’s K&N Horsepower Challenge final round, Anderson, a two-time winner (2004, 2006) of this bonus event, drove his Summit Racing Pontiac GXP to an elapsed time of 6.717 seconds at 204.91 mph with a more-than-respectable .024 reaction, but the three-time NHRA Pro Stock champ couldn’t overcome Johnson’s perfect light. Johnson drove his Dodge to a slower but winning 6.725 elapsed time at 204.91 mph to earn the $50,000 payday.
“I can’t take anything away from Allen,” Anderson said, “he went out and earned it. Call it what you want, but he earned it. He kicked my butt on the starting line; it doesn’t matter what the numbers were. He was .024 better on the starting line, and that’s why he won the race and won himself 50 grand. I’m proud of my team, though. We picked up three hundredths on the car, so obviously we learned a ton on that run. Hopefully that will propel us into better things for tomorrow.”
Anderson received $10,000 for his runner-up effort today and will face fellow Pontiac driver Mike Edwards in the first round of eliminations.
“It’s certainly not a bad day,” Anderson said. “We would have loved to have the big K&N money and we thank them for sponsoring this race. It’s a great deal and it’s a lot of fun. There’s not a lot of pressure for points or anything, just going out and running for money. Now tomorrow, it’s back to business and we’ll worry about those points again. It was very nice to see Jason (teammate Line) take the No. 1 qualifying spot for Summit, and it was nice to beat Jeg (Coughlin) in the second round of the K&N Challenge for Summit. The only thing better would have been to win the Challenge. But we gave it all we had, and the only way we can make a better weekend out of this is going ahead and putting a Summit car in the winner’s circle tomorrow.”
In the first round of today’s K&N Horsepower Challenge, Anderson drove his Pontiac past Ron Krisher in the Valvoline Chevy Cobalt with an elapsed time of 6.754 seconds at 204.88 mph to Krisher’s 6.836 and 202.88. Despite running the third-quickest elapsed time of the first round of the Challenge, Jason Line, No. 1 qualifier for Sunday’s eliminations, had the misfortune of facing the quickest car in the round in Jeg Coughlin Jr. Line drove his Summit Racing Pontiac GXP to an elapsed time of 6.774 seconds at 205.10 but fell to the JEGS.com Chevy Cobalt driven by Coughlin with a winning 6.726 e.t. at 204.66 mph.
In the bottom half of the bracket, Allen Johnson drove his Dodge to a holeshot win with an elapsed time of 6.758 seconds at 204.29 to get past Warren Johnson in the GM Performance Parts Pontiac GXP with a quicker but losing 6.754 e.t. at 205.98 mph. Kurt Johnson in the ACDelco Chevy Cobalt had the second-quickest elapsed time in Round 1 with a 6.738 e.t. at 206.04 mph to defeat Dave Connolly in the Charter Communications Chevy Cobalt with a 6.762 e.t. at 204.08 mph.
In the semifinals, Anderson ran an elapsed time of 6.748 seconds at 204.14 mph for a holeshot win over Coughlin who had a 6.745 e.t. at 204.66 mph. Allen Johnson had an elapsed time of 6.729 at 204.66 mph to best Kurt Johnson with a 6.738 e.t. at 205.54 mph.
In addition to the on-track action, eight randomly selected sweepstakes winners from more than 100,000 entrants received an all-expenses-paid trip for two courtesy of K&N Engineering to attend this weekend’s NHRA race at Norwalk. Each winner was randomly paired with one of the eight Pro Stock racers competing in today’s K&N Horsepower Challenge with the winning driver’s sweepstakes winner – which ended up being Ed Merry Jr. who was paired with Johnson – taking home a new Pontiac G6 GXP coupe courtesy of Pontiac.
“This is just great,” Merry said. “I can’t believe it. I honestly thought before the race that Allen was going to have a perfect reaction time, and then he goes out and does it. Unbelievable!”
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