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Wednesdays with Wayne – Bradway Blues! (Bill W) May 13 – Wayne Johnson made another trip to California last weekend to compete at the Silver Dollar Speedway in Chico in Harold Main’s #35A. He wasn’t planning on the sightseeing being the highlight of the weekend, but that’s the way it ended up, as the racing didn’t go so well. This weekend, he’ll go after $5,000 at the Spring Nationals in Jackson, Minnesota and compete with a loaded field at the Knoxville Raceway. Friday night, Chico hosted their regular weekly program and Wayne timed in 18th. He went on to win his heat from the front row, but he wasn’t comfortable with the car. “We just couldn’t get anything going, and I can’t really explain it,” he says of the weekend. “The track was the same both nights. Heavy, heavy, heavy.” Starting inside row seven, Wayne finished 14th in Friday’s event. “We didn’t qualify well either night, and we never got it going on the track during the feature either,” he says. “We changed so much stuff, but we never got our finger on it.” The Dave Bradway Jr. Memorial was set for Saturday, and it was sanctioned by the Golden State Challenge series. Wayne qualified 21st putting him on the point for his heat race. “They said I jumped the start,” he says. “I thought I was setting the pace from the pole, but we had to go to the back. A car spun sideways in front of me, and we tipped over. I tried to check up, but it wasn’t enough.” The team got the car ready to go for the B main, where the Knoxville, Iowa driver started eighth and finished fifth, transferring to the main event. Wayne was credited with a 19th place finish after pulling in early in the feature. “We weren’t good at all there in the B,” he says. “In the feature, we were so bad, I just pulled it in. We just couldn’t get a handle on it. I don’t know what the deal was.” Despite the frustration, Wayne is looking forward to going back out and driving Main’s sprinter in June. “It was the worse weekend I’ve had racing in a long time, but we’ll be back out there soon and we’ll get it figured out,” he says. “I want to thank Harold and the rest of the guys again for the opportunity.” Wayne will return to the Jackson Speedway where he won after starting 18th in the prelim of last summer’s Jackson Nationals. The “Spring Nationals” will pay $5,000 to the winner. “We’ll be running the FattFro #14AJ at Jackson with Seth Bergman’s (Seth is headquartered at Wayne’s this summer) back-up Shark (engine). We’ll try his worn out stuff and see how we do!” Wayne Johnson Apparel in Stock! 2009 Wayne Johnson apparel for both men and women is now in stock! T-shirts, long sleeve shirts, sweatshirts, tank tops and hats are all in! To order, e-mail Wayne at WayneJohnsonRacing@yahoo.com or stop by the trailer at the track. Wayne’s Website To learn more about Wayne and the team, log on to www.WayneJohnsonRacing.com! Wayne’s World Bob Wilson asks: Wayne, it's amazing how your career has progressed since you started hanging around Knoxville. It is great to see you getting rides from coast to coast as owners hear how easy you are to work with. My question is, how do you fit into the seats of those cars and become comfortable? There has to be more to this story.
Wayne answers: I have a custom built seat from Bulterbuilt Professional Seat Systems. I take it wherever I race. Just about every driver has their own that they bring along. They mount different in each chassis. You can move it around a little once it’s in there and get comfortable. It’s just like the seat in your passenger car as much as that’s concerned.
Wayne’s Tech Tips
Could you talk a bit about tire pressure, and how it affects the handling of the car?
Wayne: Taking the air pressure out of it, it gives the car less spring rate. It also changes the roll-center of the car. There’s too many ways to use it to explain here, but at bigger tracks like Knoxville, you’ll run more pressure and at the smaller tracks you’ll generally use less pressure. You’ll also use less pressure on a slick track than a heavy track to try to get more traction.
Got a question for Wayne? Each week, Wayne will answer your questions about “Tech Tips”, or anything that’s on your mind. If you ever wondered what a part on a sprint car is all about, send an e-mail to us at sprntcar@iowatelecom.net, and we may answer it in this section! Put "? for Wayne" in your subject line. He’ll try to keep it clean if you do! “Wednesday’s with Wayne” “Wednesday’s With Wayne” is an up close look at the past, present and future of colorful and talented sprint car driver Wayne Johnson. You’ll never know what to expect next with Wayne, so don’t miss us on Wednesdays! To receive "Wednesday’s with Wayne", send an e-mail to sprntcar@iowatelecom.net with "Wayne" in the subject line. Wayne would like to thank FattFro, Stone Mountain Access, Bral Restoration, Deberg Concrete, TNT Custom Golf Carts, www.RacingThreads.com, CnB Mushroom Farms, Maxim Chassis, ARP Wings, Hoosier Tire, Simpson, Weld and ButlerBuilt for all their help!
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