Mike Edwards and Allen Johnson have been like Siamese twins during qualifying lately. One tosses up a number and the other matches it.

Edwards, in his Penhall/K&N/Interstate GXP, drew blood in the first round of qualifying, but it was Johnson, in the Mopar/J & J Racing Avenger, who took the top spot at the end of the day in the cooling temperatures of a setting sun by a scant one thousandth of a second – 7.020 to 7.021 seconds. Johnson also had the fastest speed at 197.19 miles per hour.

“The conditions got a lot better,” Johnson explained. “I think the track temperature was 20 degrees cooler. (We) just put some gear ratio in there, revved it up and got after it. (The) track is pretty awesome.”

Mike Edwards and Allen Johnson have been like Siamese twins during qualifying lately. One tosses up a number and the other matches it.

Edwards, in his Penhall/K&N/Interstate GXP, drew blood in the first round of qualifying, but it was Johnson, in the Mopar/J & J Racing Avenger, who took the top spot at the end of the day in the cooling temperatures of a setting sun by a scant one thousandth of a second – 7.020 to 7.021 seconds. Johnson also had the fastest speed at 197.19 miles per hour.

“The conditions got a lot better,” Johnson explained. “I think the track temperature was 20 degrees cooler. (We) just put some gear ratio in there, revved it up and got after it. (The) track is pretty awesome.”

Johnson knows the duel for the number one spot come Sunday is far from over. “We'll still adjust to it tomorrow,” he stated, cautioning, “I really think tomorrow will be the best day; it's suppose to cool down. We'll have to work tomorrow to hang onto it.”

You can bet Edwards will be gunning to retake the top spot, along with a resurgent Jeg Coughlin. Coughlin rocketed from 13th fastest to third fastest in the second round, shaving almost a full tenth of a second off his first run in his Jegs.com Cobalt.

Johnson admitted to some trepidation while preparing for his first round run. In previous years Denver was the first stop in the Western Swing and Pro Stock teams would test en masse in preparation for the three race run of Denver, Seattle and Sonoma.

“We didn't test here this year and we normally do, so we were a little nervous the first run. We hit it pretty close. So, second round we were just able to tweak it a little bit. That mastery comes from just good old hard work. We come up here and test a lot and we have a lot of data; blood, sweat and tears.”

Ron Krisher and Greg Anderson filled out the top five amongst the fastest qualifiers while Greg Stanfield, Roger Brogdon and Kurt Johnson struggled to put top twelve numbers on the board.