Salt Lake City: Johnny Ahten final report

AWESOME AHTEN TEAM CAPTURES FIRST CAREER EVENT VICTORY
L.A. County Fire Firefighter Extinguishes Pro Fuel Competition at IHRA Salt Lake Nitro Jam

Salt Lake City, Utah - Johnny Ahten, a 38-year old Firefighter Specialist from the Los Angeles County Fire Department and driver of the Ahten Racing / Island Renovations Injected nitro-methane IHRA Pro Fuel Dragster, captured his first National Event championship in dominating fashion this past weekend at the Inaugural running of the IHRA Salt Lake Nitro Jam contested at Rocky Mountain Raceways in Salt Lake City, Utah.

After recording a shocking 5.58 second elapsed time off the trailer in day one of the Nitro Jam, Ahten and the Santa Clarita, Calif. based team experienced a slight 'hick-up' in the money round by red-lighting away a race victory against Brandon Johnson on Friday evening, which served as the first event of two in the unique IHRA Nitro Jam format. The opening night's mistake however provided the Southern California invaders with a bit of inspiration to rebound on day two.

"I felt like we had let down all our friends, fans and marketing partners with our red-light on Friday evening," noted Ahten, who's had gone zero-for-three in previous final round appearances driving his teams nitro-rail in NHRA A/Fuel Dragster trim. "In the run against Brandon I never saw the red-light come on. When I got out of the car, I started to celebrate until one of the track officials informed me I had lit the "red tomato" and lost. Needless to say, I had to remove the egg from my face and get our car ready to come back with a vengeance on Day two. Fortunately we did that; and then some."

Athten qualified for the final round by setting low elapsed time of the opening session, a cylinder dropping 5.82 second run. This set up a final round pairing against fellow IHRA newcomer Larry Miersch in Saturday's Pro Fuel final. Ahten erased every track record in the books in claiming the win, laying down a blistering 5.56 elapsed time at 248.75 miles-per-hour in the all-new, all-nitro IHRA category. Miersch ran a 5.91 ET to earn the runner-up spot.

"That car was flat-out hauling the mail in the final round and it was great to capture our first team win at our first IHRA race," Ahten said. "We felt we came in this event with a little bit of an advantage, as we tested last weekend in Nevada because we knew it would be a similar elevation and we wanted to come here prepared. Obviously that worked out for us. Getting the trophy and taking that virtual monkey off my back really made up for last night. We dig this new format. We love racing and out here we are just racing with nitro cars. The fans were incredible and it was great to capture a race win for our crew, our team at CRX Media, and our new friends in the Salt Lake City area. It was also cool that one of our buddies and loyal team supporters, Brett Winberg advanced to the finals in Top Sportsman. We want to thank him for his support over the past few races. This weekend is one I'll never forget."

-source: ahten racing