Pro Stock’s Allen Johnson Takes Down Krisher In Final Round At Bandimere

MORRISON, Colo. — National Hot Rod Ass’n Pro Stock driver Allen Johnson came through when it counted Sunday at the Mopar Mile-High Nationals at Bandimere Speedway.
The Thursday before this 13th of 23 races in the POWERade Drag Racing Series, the event sponsor hosted a Mopar Big Block party in Golden, and Johnson did his part to promote his sponsor’s brand.
But wearing goofy sunglasses and comically oversized flippers and parading around in a bathing-beauty contest, which he lost to Gary Scelzi in a grass skirt and coconut bra? Honestly. But the veteran from Greeneville, Tenn., did it for Team Mopar.
And Johnson wasn’t prepared for the rough inner-tube ride down Clear Creek — “The Rumble In The Rapids.” The object was to race Scelzi, Richie Stevens and Jack Beckman. But it nearly turned into a fight for survival. Still, he did it for Team Mopar.
“It didn’t do a whole lot for us,” Johnson said. The 40-degree water alone was torturous enough, but his rear end raked across rocks and he aggravated a week-old wrist injury that involved damaged ligaments. It hurt him so much that during qualifying, he told top-end track personnel that “I thought I was going to throw up, it hurt so bad.”
His crew has doctored the shifter on his Dodge Stratus, fixing it “to where I don’t have to hold it so hard.” Again he and the others lost to Scelzi. But Johnson did it for Team Mopar.
But on the tricky Bandimere Speedway quarter-mile strip, with its almost impossible combination of 90-degree temperatures and thin air, Johnson led the Pro Stock field in qualifying with the low elapsed time of the meet (7.032 seconds) and beat Ron Krisher in the final round. And he did it for Team Mopar.
He shared the winner’s circle with Hot Rod Fuller (Top Fuel), Jack Beckman (Funny Car) and Matt Smith (Pro Stock Motorcycle).
“It was just a fairy-tale weekend,” Johnson said, sloughing aside his aches. “To be at a Mopar event, have the fastest car, be No. 1 qualifier . . . Everything you can do we done this weekend. We’ve been a win waiting to happen since the first of the year.”
With a 7.132-second pass at 192.47 miles per hour, Johnson denied Krisher his first victory in 92 races, since 2003 at St. Louis. He also paid back Krisher, for he was the runner-up to Krisher that day in 2003 at Gateway Int’l Raceway.
Krisher, showing the strength of his new Victor Cagnazzi horsepower, beat Jason Line, Richie Stevens and the equally resurgent Kenny Koretsky to advance to the final. But his Valvoline Chevy Cobalt broke at the starting line against Johnson, and he coasted to a 16.720/48.95 clocking as Johnson pocketed the $20,000 winners’ share.
Johnson said his championship-caliber performance — he’s fourth in points, easily within the Countdown parameters — “is just a dream come true, especially for my dad.”
Roy Johnson suffered a heart attack in February at the second race of the season and clinically died at a Chandler, Ariz., hospital. Electric shock brought him back, and Allen Johnson said, “three days later, he was back at the shop and he’s been working ever since. Now he has more energy, more creativity and more brainpower than he had before.”
In turn, Roy Johnson has resuscitated Team Mopar’s engine program, with his partnership with Don Schumacher Racing providing the financial resources to turn his blueprint into reality.
Fuller continues to cling to the Top Fuel point lead with race-by-race sponsorship or none at all in his David Powers Motorsports-owned dragster. Fuller has led the standings following 10 of the 13 races this year. In an all-DPM final, he spoiled teammate and former Funny Car driver Whit Bazemore’s first money-round appearance in the Top Fuel class.   
Fuller earned $40,000 with a 4.683-second elapsed time that was lowest of eliminations and 312.93-mph speed in the Wagner Cat dragster to top Bazemore’s 4.770/308.35 in the Matco Tools dragster.
“There’s something about this win — it almost makes me feel like I’m legit,” Fuller said. “I can’t wait for the day I have security.”
This victory was gratifying for a variety of reasons. It was where Fuller qualified for his first Top Fuel race in 1995. “I had never even won a round here before,” he said. In addition, his Grandmother Fuller passed away Tuesday. He said his family gathered around a computer and listened to race coverage on the Internet. “It felt good to honor my family and my grandmother.”
In Funny Car, Beckman defeated Schumacher Racing teammate Ron Capps, who was making his sixth final-round appearance. Beckman’s 4.932-second e.t. at 312.86 mph in the Mail Terminal Services Dodge Charger edged Capps’s 5.001/307.86 effort in the Brut Charger.
After winning for the first time this season and earning $40,000, Beckman said he was especially pleased. “I’m on a steep learning curve,” the Frank Hawley Drag Racing School instructor said. “I replaced Whit Bazemore, and tomorrow he could get back in there and be one of the top-three Funny Car drivers again. I’ve definitely been the weakest link on the team.”
Pro Stock Motorcycle’s Matt Smith beat  Angelle Sampey to take home $7,000. It marked the second time in the past five races this season that Smith has beaten Sampey in a final round, although this time Sampey really beat herself by leaving the starting line four-hundredths of a second too early.  Smith recorded a 7.400-second e.t. at 177.81 mph.