The final run of Saturday Pro Stock qualifying at the NHRA Southern Nationals concluded with the two best cars on the property of Atlanta Dragway battling for the top spot.

Allen Johnson admittedly lost the battle with Mike Edwards but won the war when his previous 6.634 second pass held through a session the least conducive to yielded big numbers for Pro Stockers.
The final run of Saturday Pro Stock qualifying at the NHRA Southern Nationals concluded with the two best cars on the property of Atlanta Dragway battling for the top spot.

Allen Johnson admittedly lost the battle with Mike Edwards but won the war when his previous 6.634 second pass held through a session the least conducive to yielded big numbers for Pro Stockers.

The loss didn’t really seem like a loss for Johnson, who proclaimed on Friday evening his team had caught and passed the defending series champion. He was looking ahead to Sunday’s final eliminations for a clue as to what a 120 degree track could handle.

“We sort of tested in that final session and we wanted to see what the track would take,” Johnson said. “We definitely learned not to go there.”

While Johnson believes his team has bridged a great deal of the performance gap which has separated Edwards from the competition, he’s not anywhere close to insinuating Edwards is close to being done with his run on the class.

In fact, Johnson believes there’s a strong likelihood they’ll line up again before the weekend is done.

“A 6.62 … we are right there with him, he’s still bad to the bone,” said Johnson. “We have to do our job and be perfect just like he is. He hadn’t been perfect all weekend, and we had but weren’t on that last run. It just shows you how close this class is and what kind of runs we need to make to go to No. 1. If I can do my job tomorrow and he can do his; it’s going to come down to us tomorrow. Then it will be a matter who can get their foot off of the pedal first.”