Connolly said his performance was "nothing
to be ashamed of." And he was correct. The youngster
from the Cleveland suburb of Elyria who turned
21 on New Year's Day had the advantage on the
Christmas tree with a .032-second reaction time
to Johnson's slower .057.
"Our ACDelco Cavalier made four absolutely
perfect runs today," Johnson said. "In the final
against Connolly, I thought I had a decent light,
but it's tough to tell between the .20s, .30s,
.40s and .50s out there. That Connolly kid is
very good for the amount of experience he has.
Fortunately, I made a good run and was able
to reel him back in. Anytime you can win by
eight ten-thousandths of a second, it's exciting."
As for racing against Anderson, Johnson said,
"I know several people are making a big deal
about my beating Greg in the semis, but winning
the race is what really matters. Some people
may haven been a little surprised by our performance,
but I wasn't.
"As well as he had been running this weekend,
I was glad to be within two hundredths of Greg,"
he added. "However, we prefer to work on our
car instead of worrying about what he was doing.
Throughout the day, we kept making adjustments,
picking up our performance first in the front
half, and then in the back half. I also think
he might have been slowing down.
"In that semi-final race," Johnson said, "I
felt my light was pretty good, but even so,
I could just feel him there on my left-hand
side. I wanted to look so badly, but I just
concentrated on doing my job, suffering through
those seven seconds and waited for my win light
to come on. Fortunately, it did."
Anderson continues to lead the Pro Stock standings
with 196 points, five more than Johnson. Warren
Johnson is lurking in third place, 42 points
behind his son. Larry Morgan, a semifinalist
for the second straight week, is a point behind
W.J., and Connolly completes the top five, just
one more point away.
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