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(Bill W) May 11, 2011 – Two weeks at Knoxville, two quick times, two great heat runs, and still not a lap has been run in the feature. Last Saturday night, an accident started in front of Wayne Johnson at the drop of the green. He had nowhere to go, ending his night prematurely. The BDS Motorsports #38 team hopes to change their early season luck by making repairs to the sprinter and they anticipate competing in the 410 class this weekend at Knoxville. For the second week in a row, Wayne blistered the 360 field with quick time. For the second week in a row, he made a charge from a ways back in his heat. He was able to finish first at the checkers. “When we’ve run, everything has been great,” he says. “The car, the Super Shox…just everything has been working. Everything is clicking and jelling. We just need some luck.” With an invert draw of twelve, Wayne would start outside row six for the feature. The week before he was unable to start due to a stripped out cam spud. “We’re giving everyone a head start all year long,” he says of the invert of twelve. “Like I told Bryan…he’s a new car owner, and he’s kind of going through the new car owner blues a bit. We’re definitely turning things around though.” With cars bouncing off each other in front of him at the drop of the green, Wayne clipped Jonathan Cornell and went for a ride. “Hopefully, we can make ½ a lap next week!” he jokes. “We’re at Maxim (in Springfield, Illinois) now getting the car repaired, and we’re picking up some other stuff.” The Knoxville, Iowa driver described the incident to start the feature. “I thought I had them cleared,” says Wayne. “I drove to the bottom, and I barely clipped Cornell’s front end. A half-second later and I would have cleared him. It was definitely a hard crash. It tore up everything, but that took the blow.” Replays have been analyzed over and over, but in the end it was another racing incident for Wayne. The good part was, no one was injured. “It looked a lot worse than it was,” he says of the crash. “All the parts you see flying off the car are absorbing the impact. I have the best safety stuff there is. My Butlerbuilt seat kept me contained. I did have a crack in the helmet from a wing stand, but all the safety features did their job. There are things we are working with today thinking about Aaron Berryhill’s crash last weekend at Devil’s Bowl too.” The team is busy planning for Knoxville and hopes to have their Parker 410 powerplant ready for action. Their luck is bound to change. “If we can get everything together, our intention is to run in the 410 class this weekend,” says Wayne.
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