Johnson sets new record, qualifies first at Summer Nationals

Pro Stock: In Friday’s second qualifying round of the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series, 24th annual Dollar General Summer Nationals, Allen Johnson set a new track ET record of 6.618 seconds at 207.85 mph in the Team Mopar/J&J Racing Dodge Avenger, edging out Greg Anderson in the Summit Racing GXP for the top spot.

Fans at Heartland Park in Topeka, Kansas, saw an equally newsworthy performance from V. Gaines who finally hit it right with the Kendall Oil Avenger and qualified sixth, ahead of Vincent Nobile, Jeg Coughlin and Chris McGaha. Gaines qualified in both rounds with some of the best numbers he has hit in some time. Nobile and Coughlin also qualified in both rounds while McGaha had to work for it after he lost power in the first round.

Funny Car: Matt Hagan had a clean run in the first round; it just wasn’t fast enough to qualify. He had a better run in the second round, getting into the game with an ET of 4.105 seconds, Johnny Gray and Jack Beckman had good passes in both rounds and also finished the day with ETs of 4.105. Of the three, Gray had the top speed at 310.13, followed by Beckman at 308.43 and Hagan at 303.91, so they qualified fifth, sixth and seventh going onto today’s qualifying rounds. Ron Capps qualified seventh in the first round, but put down a 4.078 ET in the second round to qualify fourth.

Jack Wyatt’s Stratus started blowing fuel out of the headers in the first round and he had to coast through the quarter-mile. The problem must have been fairly serious because he was a no-show for Round Two.

Penske Update: Kligerman to sub for Keselowski in Iowa; Villeneuve signs for two Nationwide events

Parker Kligerman will be at the wheel of the Penske Racing No. 22 Discount Tire Dodge Challenger R/T for Sunday’s NASCAR Nationwide Series Pioneer Hi-Bred 250 at Iowa Speedway. Brad Keselowski, who finished second in last night’s Camping World event, is staying in Charlotte for tonight’s Sprint All-Star Race. Kligerman will be running Penske chassis PRS-219, the same one Keselowski drove to a third-place finish in the Ford EcoBoost 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway in March.

Brad Keselowski and the No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger team qualified 19th for the All-Star Race. He posted a lap time of 120.436 seconds, but drew a ten-second penalty for loose lug nuts.

AJ Allmendinger and the No. 22 Pennzoil Dodge claimed the pole position for today’s Saturday’s Sprint Showdown with a fast lap of 28.057 seconds (192.465 mph). That was more than two-tenths of a second faster than second-place Martin Truex Jr.’s lap (28.265 seconds/191.049 mph).

The Sprint Showdown kicks off at 7:30 PM. The winner and runner-up and the winner of the Sprint “fan vote” will then compete in the All-Star Race, scheduled to start at 9:00 PM (all times Eastern).

The All-Star weekend will air live tonight at 7:00 PM Eastern on the SPEED Channel. Race coverage will also be carried live on the Motor Racing Network and Sirius Satellite Radio Channel 90.

Jacques Villeneuve will return to Penske Racing for the two NASCAR Nationwide Series events in which he competed last year. Villeneuve will drive the No. 22 Dodge in the Road America 200 on June 23 and in the NAPA Auto Parts 200 at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal on August 18.

Villeneuve, a former Formula One world champion, has started in ten NASCAR races over the past five seasons, seven of those starts were in the Nationwide Series. Villeneuve is one of only three drivers to win the Indianapolis 500, the IndyCar championship and the F1 world title. Former Penske Racing drivers Mario Andretti and Emerson Fittipaldi were the other two.

Keselowski second, Kligerman 11th at Charlotte

Brad Keselowski and the Brad Keselowski Racing (BKR) No. 19 Cooper Standard Ram were the runners-up in Friday’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series North Carolina Education Lottery 200 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. This matches his best Camping World career finish set at Gateway in July 2010 and it’s the fourth second-place finish for BKR. Parker Kligerman, driving the BKR No. 29 Draw-Tite/Mopar Ram, finished 11th and jumped a spot to fifth in the Camping World driver standings.

“We had a great Cooper Standard RAM,’ said Keselowski, following the race. “I’m really proud of everybody at BKR. This was the truck to beat tonight and they worked their butts off to make it happen. It all came down to the restarts and who was willing to work together and the last restarts, nobody worked with me. They did everything they could to wreck me. I was real frustrated about that but that’s racing and we’ll move on.”

Keselowksi had a bit of trouble with Ron Hornaday, driver of the No. 9 Joe Denette Motorsports Chevrolet. Keselowski maintained he and Hornaday could have had a one-two finish, but Hornaday showed Keselowski “…no respect at all,” as Keselowski put it, and drove his Chevy into the back of the BKR Ram on one of the late-race restarts, allowing Justin Lofton in the No. 6 CollegeComplete.com Chevrolet to cross the finish line 0.261 seconds ahead of Keselowski and take a one-point lead in the driver standings. It was Lofton’s first victory in 55 starts: his previous best was third.

To watch the final laps click here.

In the post-race media center interviews, Keselowski was asked about Hornaday’s actions during the last restart.

“Well I didn’t think he did anything on the last restart. It was the one before that. You know I came over the radio and asked him ‘Hey man, I’ll play it cool. Just be nice and smooth here and we’ll both have great day.’ Instead, he decided to be a jackass and run me over. I don’t define that as playing it cool. And it cost him what would have been an easy second-place and obviously cost me the win. So, we both lost out on the deal and you know I was just frustrated by that. So, that’s the way it goes.”

“We had a fast truck; we were just as fast as our teammate (Keselowski) again,” said Parker Kligerman, recapping his race. We started off safe, making sure we didn’t put ourselves in a bad position. And our Draw-Tite RAM just took off, tore through the field and made it all the way up to second behind Brad before the first pit stop. I had a good pit stop, came out behind Brad in second and was looking good. Then the next caution came out and we ended up back in the field and battling in the pack. We were bad to the bone by ourselves or when the field was spread out, but when we got in the pack, it was a different story. We had a top-three truck, maybe a winning truck. The 19 finished second; we were right there with him. This Draw-Tite RAM was really fast; I just need to do a better job getting it up there.”

SRT wins class in One Lap

SRT has won the Truck/SUV class in the One Lap of America, which has cars traveling from place to place and competing in various events at different circuits. The venerable program, lampooned in the Cannonball Run movies, has ten classes, five for “stock” cars. The #49 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8 driven by Marco Diniz, John Palazzolo, and Brandt Rosenbusch pulled in 395 points, compared with 375 for a 2012 BMW X5 M, 330 for a Honda Odyssey driven by a Honda racing team, and 225 points for a 2012 Porsche Cayenne Turbo.

In overall standings, the Grand Cherokee SRT8 came in 30th place, with 4,050 points, while the BMW X5 M came in 31st, with 4,045 points.

Other Mopars include the 4th-place 2010 Dodge Viper ACR (SSGT1 Big Bore), which came in fourth in its class; the 20th-place Dodge Viper ACR (SSGT1 Big Bore); the 41st-place Dodge Magnum SRT8; the 47th place 2011 Dodge Challenger (stock); and the 62nd-place 2008 Viper SRT. There were 75 cars in the field; the bottom four, which appear to have failed to finish, were a 2001 Ford ambulance, 1987 Porsche 944, Porsche GT3 RS, and 2001 BMW M coupe. The lowest points for a car that did finish were recorded by a 2004 Volkswagen R32.

Mopar Action, which won a previous One Lap in a hastily-prepped Plymouth Duster, was absent this year.