Monster Energy Funny Car Team Makes Good Qualifying Effort at Maple Grove Raceway

READING, Pa. -- The Monster Energy Funny Car team made progress in qualifying at the Toyo Tires Nationals, but tire smoke in the first round put a quick end to race day. Tommy Johnson drove the Kenny Bernstein-owned Dodge Charger to the No. 11 qualifying position with a 4.166-second elapsed time at 296.76 miles per hour.

In the first round of eliminations against Ashley Force, Johnson had the reaction time starting line advantage, but by the time he reached the 330-foot marker, the Monster Energy car had suffered loss of traction. Ms. Force took the round win to progress to the next round.

“We qualified comfortably on Friday” said Johnson, “so we used Saturday to work on the race day set-up and some issues we were having down track with the car coming loose. “Today I thought we’d be good. I thought we had all the down track problems solved. For some unknown reason the car came loose early in the round where we had no problems all weekend. The set up was basically the same as Saturday, so we were surprised when we smoked the tires.

“It’s frustrating when you make some good consistent runs in qualifying. We were hoping for a big race day.”