National Blues, Regional Desires Fuel Ahten Racing

Courtesy of John Rogers/Ahten Racing
Photo courtesy of Costabile Productions

After a very long weekend at the DENSO Spark Plugs NHRA Nationals, Johnny Ahten and the Island Renovations / Combust Filters team is anxious to get back to racing at this weekend’s Regional race at the Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. 

 

The Ahten Racing truck and trailer pulled into the Vegas racetrack on Thursday afternoon in preparation for the National event. By Friday morning, it had already seemed like a week.

“We were chasing an ignition gremlin and it was a thrash just to get to the line for the first qualifying session, “said Johnny Ahten. We went back to a familiar combination and we thought we had the car sorted out.  Our first and second qualifying passes proved us wrong on that one. As it turns out, we had a drivetrain issue that was preventing us from launching the car under power. By the third qualifying session on Saturday we had found the issue and laid down a decent pass. It was a long couple of days that made that full qualifying pass feel very satisfying.”

The Stump Puller’s third session 5.418/263.82 was good enough to qualify in the seventh spot. A first round match-up with Megan McKernan was slated for later on that day.

When the lights came down on round one, Johnny took a slight advantage and got the stripe first with a 5.543@261.72 over Megan McKernan's 5.627@262.28. It was not perfect, but after the mechanical challenges of the previous days, a win was welcome. This set up a Sunday morning round two with Garrett Bateman, who just happened to be the #1 qualifier.

In an epic battle that pitted the Clean Boost Oil teammates, Johnny Ahten drew first blood with the starting line advantage, but tire shake entered the skirmish.  Bateman’s 5.347@268.97 took the win over the Stump Puller’s troubled 5.629@236.30.

“I slapped the pedal after the tire shake and tried to catch him but the damage was done.” added Ahten. “That run did produce our best short time of the weekend. I got out of it downtrack so that was why our mph was down. Overall it felt great to advance, and it is fuel for us to make this weekend’s Regional race count. I have to thank Troy from the Kalitta Mac Tools team for the help along with a host of others. Racers helping racers is the one of the greatest things about our sport.”

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