The day Steve Johnson hoped never would arrive has come this weekend during the NHRA Fall Nationals in Dallas, Texas. For the first time in his 24 years of competing in NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle, Sunday’s final eliminations will open with a short field.

The final entry list for the event showed only fifteen.

“The NHRA and the Pro Stock Motorcyle team owners cannot fix the economy,” said Johnson. “But, we can be smart. As a group, PRO2, we can come together and analyze situations ahead of time and bring riders in. I mean, if you show up here and qualify, that’s $1,000.

The day Steve Johnson hoped never would arrive has come this weekend during the NHRA Fall Nationals in Dallas, Texas. For the first time in his 24 years of competing in NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle, Sunday’s final eliminations will open with a short field.

The final entry list for the event showed only fifteen.

“The NHRA and the Pro Stock Motorcyle team owners cannot fix the economy,” said Johnson. “But, we can be smart. As a group, PRO2, we can come together and analyze situations ahead of time and bring riders in. I mean, if you show up here and qualify, that’s $1,000.

“We just have to work smarter. When PRO2 dissolved a little bit, it lost that marketing and brand manager. Now that we’ve decided to bring it back and the brand manager will take up the slack in situations like this. This can be fixed, there’s no reason why we should have a short field here.”

Johnson doesn’t believe the class became complacent. Rather, he believes everyone just got busy.

“Everyone became so involved in their programs,” Johnson said. “Their lives are complicated and therefore their racing is complicated too. Human beings can only process so much information. I was just fortunate that I didn’t have anything else going on but racing. The brand management for the category was easy for me to take over. When you live and breathe it, like I do, it was easy.

“When it looked like we were going to have issues, I cut it off and called in the troops.”

Johnson resigned his leadership role at PRO2 in April of 2008.

There were only 14 bikes in Sunday's first round of eliminations.

{source}
<div style="float:left; padding:5px;">
<script type="text/javascript">
sr_adspace_id = 2000000613807;
sr_adspace_width = 300;
sr_adspace_height = 250;
sr_ad_new_window = true;
sr_adspace_type = "graphic";
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ad.afy11.net/srad.js?azId=2000000613807">
</script></div>

<div style="padding:5px;"><script type="text/javascript">
google_ad_client = "pub-8044869477733334";
/* 300x250, created 4/3/09 */
google_ad_slot = "2028912167";
google_ad_width = 300;
google_ad_height = 250;
</script>
<script src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
</div>{/source}