Wayne Johnson will be going for his third Knoxville 360 Nationals title this week aboard the Two-C Racing #2c. The Oklahoma City native won the 360 Nationals in both 2000 and 2008, and will qualify on Friday. Last weekend saw a pair of podium finishes, and a run from 24th to seventh at Knoxville Saturday.
The team competed with the ASCS Warrior region at US36 Raceway near Osborn, Missouri Friday. “We were good in the heat, going from fifth to second,” says Wayne. “We ran fourth in the Qualifier, which made us second in points. So we started outside the front row for the feature.”
Wayne, a former Bud Shootout winner at US36, would checker third. “The track was as slick as I’ve ever seen it,” he says. “Jonathan Cornell started on the pole, and won it. We were just o.k. We were going to finish second, and I screwed up at the end and let the ‘Catfish’ (Danny Lasoski) go by me on the bottom.”
Sixty-two cars gathered for ASCS National action at Knoxville Saturday. Wayne timed in 12th quick in his group. “I was pretty loose in qualifying,” he says. “That was a brand-new motor, and we really didn’t know how we’d do on it. We kept working on it all night long and got better and better.”
A third place run in the heat wasn’t good enough to lock him into the feature, so he lined up fifth in a B that took just two to the A. “We actually fell back to sixth in the B,” says Wayne. “The driver got pissed off and started driving the car like he stole it. We ended up grabbing the second an final transfer spot.”
Starting on the tail of the main event, Wayne would charge to a seventh place finish. “We had a good run up through there,” he says. “I really felt if the caution hadn’t have come out, we could have run second or third. We didn’t need that yellow. The car was good and we learned a lot. We’re looking forward to the 360 Nationals.”
The weekend concluded Sunday with a third place run at Mason City Motor Speedway in Iowa with ASCS. “It was just one of those rubber-down tracks,” says Wayne. “We were actually lucky to run third. We started fifth, and we were running fourth at the end. (Matt) Covington broke and that allowed us to run third.”
- administrator on Aug 02, 2017
- Article Date: 8/2/2017