August 4, 2001

Portland Race Notes And Johnny's Race Comments

Johnny finished 4th in the Tommy Bahama 125 mile race from Portland International Speedway. He started in sixth position and dropped back to tenth after a first lap mishap in the turn 1 chicane. Johnny said “We had a pretty good race car today. It did everything I needed it to do whenever I asked. Our car was as good at the end of the race as it was at the start. We had a great pit stop, no problems, and we were looking for a strong finish today. “

There was a late caution flag that caused a three lap shootout for the win. Johnny was in second place at the time. Johnny commented, “That last caution and resultant restart really messed us up. We were closing on Archer eight tenths of a second per lap. There was lapped traffic between us on the restart. We had a terrible restart which probably cost us the win. I made a deal that didn’t work. Instead of keeping to our deal, the driver dove in on me and squeezed me off and that let Paul (Gentilozzi) and Justin (Bell) get by. I had three wheels off going through the chicane. (Later discussion showed the there was some miscommunications from the passing deal that lead to the problems).

Then we had the last caution late on the final lap. I had passed Justin Bell for position – third place and podium finish – on the back part of the track long before I saw any flags. I never saw a yellow flag until the last turn coming onto the front straight. The SCCA officials say the full course caution was out. The decision is that I finish fourth instead of third. We’ll take it and head back to the Eastern US. It still moves us up into second in the championship points battle. We gained some points on Brian Simo, which is so important in the big picture as we head into the last part of the season”

Tommy Archer won the race with Paul Gentilozzi taking second. Justin Bell was awarded third.

Next up is Elkhart Lake Wisconsin in two weeks. Johnny is ready to go and motivated to put on a BIG SHOW there.