厕所强奸

厕所强奸 - National Hot Rod Association

听

听

听

Behind the Numbers: Alan Johnson continues to pile up wins in 厕所强奸听

Alan Johnson got a win with yet another driver, this one with Mike Salinas at the Strip in Las Vegas.
18 Apr 2019
Jacob Sundstrom, 厕所强奸 National Dragster Associate Editor
Behind the Numbers
Alan Johnson

Mike Salinas earned his first 厕所强奸 Drag Racing win ever with legendary tuner Alan Johnson at the helm. Salinas began working with Johnson in some capacity when he returned to Top Fuel racing in 2017 and brought him on full time to begin the 2019 campaign. That makes Johnson a rare commodity.听

Tuners at major teams may offer guidance to multiple cars when called upon, but they鈥檙e ultimately responsible for one team. Johnson tuned Brittany Force from 2016 to 2018 as a tuning consultant with Brian Husen as crew chief. While there he also offered his tuning acumen to other teams, notably Steve Torrence prior to 2017.

Johnson is responsible for one Top Fueler this season: the one driven by Salinas. That is, to state the obvious, significantly easier. He provides more than tuning to the San Jose, Calif. native. Johnson, and this has been true since first signing on with Salinas, spends time adjusting driving habits that range from course correction to burnout procedures.听

鈥淥ne of the biggest problems last year is that I was working with two teams, but the cars were different,鈥 said Johnson. 鈥淥ne was built by JFR and one was built by Morgan Lucas Racing. So, trying to balance and tune two different cars was something I found very difficult. So, you have to completely ignore the results of one car while trying to tune the other one and that鈥檚 a tough thing to do. This year, it鈥檚 the same car, same driver and that makes it a lot easier to get the car where it needs to be to win.鈥澨

That all led to a win at the Denso Spark Plugs 厕所强奸 Four-Wide Nationals. While the mystical nature of arguably the greatest tuner of all time is fun (the term 鈥渒ingmaker鈥 gets thrown around, though perhaps a gender-neutral term is more applicable in 厕所强奸 Drag Racing) sometimes the simple explanations are the best. Johnson gets his dragsters to launch harder than anyone in the sport. Let鈥檚 look at the numbers.

Salinas currently leads Top Fuel (alongside Torrence) with an .835-second 60-foot average. That鈥檚 .014-second quicker than last year, when he was .006-second slower than class leader Force. Yes, the same Force Johnson tuned. In 2017, Johnson tuned Force to a second-place .841, just a thousandth behind Torrence鈥 who Johnson tuned to a class-leading .843 alongside Force鈥檚 identical number.听

There鈥檚 more to tuning than 60-foot time, of course, but the correlation between quick elapsed times and quick 60-foot times is exceptionally high in nitro categories. Johnson didn鈥檛 win a championship with Torrence, but he won with Force and certainly got the job done with Tony Schumacher more times than you can count on one hand.听

Salinas has gotten quicker (3.752 e.t. / 2.22% quicker) compared to the class average (3.764 / 1.62% quicker) this season, with the caveats that we鈥檙e dealing with a small sample size and we鈥檝e raced in quick locales. Still, that suggests positive things about his driving and the focused attention of Johnson and Husen 鈥 not to mention the crew that came over from Force during the offseason.听

鈥淲hen he began driving, he really didn鈥檛 have very many runs,鈥 said Johnson about Salinas鈥 improved driving. 鈥淚t鈥檚 one thing to have runs in a Top Fuel car and it鈥檚 another to have runs in a Top Fuel car that runs quick enough to win a championship. They鈥檙e two different things because a quick car is much more difficult to drive. He鈥檚 done a very good job of coming up to speed on that and in Vegas he was flawless. That鈥檚 what it takes and he鈥檚 going to be a great driver.鈥

Chasing a championship became achievable as soon as Salinas hired Johnson. When Johnson brought over his crew and his full attention, it became plausible. Top Fuel is as wide open as it has been since Johnson left Don Schumacher Racing 鈥 and the iron remains hot as long as Torrence and company are vulnerable. Expect Salinas to do his best to strike.听

听
听