The day started with a broken camshaft taking out the motor during the first practice. The team quickly began the process of fitting the backup engine which unfortunately would be about 75 to 100 horsepower down.

Practice was over, so the first run the new engine had was in time trials. A 19.986 second lap was 10th fastest and earned the final spot in the dash.  Johnny drew 9th starting spot and ran up to 7th in the dash.

The race was not a pretty affair. There were 15 cautions with 70 laps under the yellow in a short - compared to 150, 200, or 250 laps for PASS - 100 lap event. Most of the cautions were single or two car incidents - in fact one car was the cause of 5 or 6 yellows. But on a mid race restart Johnny was
almost right in the middle of the Big One. A car on the outside moved to the left in the middle of the main straight and about a dozen cars wound up in a was half on the track and half on the dirt.
Johnny (and Ben Rowe just behind him) shot to the right - Johnny bounced off the wall - and just missed the mess. The pit stop that followed was for fuel and to check for tire rubs on the left side fenders.

More yellows came and more restarts were survived. The #54 was handling well but cars with better horsepower could hold it off down the long Thompson straights. Ted Christopher and Rick Martin were battling for the lead with Johnny running with Ben Rowe and Tracy Gordon. As the race came to the final 15 laps, Martin had fallen back with a flat tire, and Johnny was up to third (and looking like an even better finish was possible) when Tracy came into three too hard and bumped Johnny into a spin in four. Both got back underway with no damage. Thanks to the high attrition and cars laps down with damage or mechanical problems, Johnny ran right up into fifth place.

Finishing three sports behind Ben, cuts the points lead by six with Ben having 1500 points to
Johnny's 1512.