Allen Johnson's victory marked the fifth of his career out of 11 final
rounds. The last time he visited the winner's circle was Seattle of
2006.
No other win has meant as much to Johnson as this one did.
"It's just a fairy tale weekend," said Johnson, seated beside his dad
and team engine builder Roy, who had suffered a heart attack earlier
this year, and has recovered fully. "I'm sure Dad will second that. For
this being a Mopar event, we were the fastest car, No. 1 qualifier:
everything you can do we did this weekend and it feels really good."
What could have been a tragedy provided a reprieve from fate for the Johnsons.
"We were lucky we were in the right spot at the right time," Johnson
said of Roy's attack in Phoenix. "It worked out that he's more healthy
now than he was before then. So, you can tell he's smarter (because of
the way the car's running.)
"That one race was a setback for him and the team. We've just come back
even stronger and everybody's bound together and we tested our butts
off and they put in long hours at the shop on the engines and it's just
all starting to come together.
"We've been a win waiting to happen since the first of the year and
just hadn't gotten a break. In the finals we got a break. We probably
wounded our motor in the finals because we only ran 192 mph.
Fortunately, Ron broke a transmission, so there's the break we were
looking for.