MOUNT MORRIS, MICH. -- Rounds eight and nine of the 2014 Pro Mazda Championship Presented by Cooper Tires brought Michael Johnson back to Houston, Texas and the same street course he raced on the previous year when running in the USF2000 Championship. The notoriously bumpy street layout around Houston's NRG Stadium greeted Johnson and his fellow JDC MotorSports drivers, Ryan Booth and Clark Toppe, in typical Texas style. It was very hot.

The Houston double header took place again in conjunction with the Verizon IndyCar Series' Shell and Pennzoil Grand Prix of Houston which also would run two races over Saturday and Sunday.
 
With it being a temporary street circuit, there would be no extra promoter test day, so only two 45-minute practices on Friday would directly lead to a 30-minute qualifying and the first 30-lap race on Saturday with the second race taking place on Sunday after a 15-minute warmup.

Since there were such a limited number of other support series running at the event, the first practice on Friday morning saw the PRO Mazda series serve, more or less, as the "track sweeper."

"There simply was no grip at all. All you are really trying to do is work on your lines since you know every time you run, the track will change as the grip level is constantly improving as more and more running takes place and cars are putting more rubber down,” Michael explained. "You just have to make sure you keep up with the changes on the car and try and adjust to the improved grip level as the weekend goes on."

P11 in practice one and P14 in practice two on Friday definitely left room for improvement prior to qualifying on Saturday. Michael summed up day one in Houston: "I was within the top 10 for most of the second session and we wanted to try something for Saturday which did not work as we hoped, so we changed it back for qualifying. But better now than during qualifying or the race and, ultimately, that’s exactly what practice is for." 

Michael struggled during qualifying and only ended up positing the 15th fastest time. "For sure qualifying was disappointing and not what we wanted. We looked at the data afterwards and there was one section through the chicane on the front straight where I lost all my time, now we need to really go get them in Race One."

Saturday afternoon’s race proved to be a total different affair as survival was key. After the green flag, an early accident brought out a full course yellow. During the track clean-up heavy rain began falling on half of the track leaving the teams and drivers with the hard choice of whether to stay on dry weather slick tires or switch to full wet rain tires.

After the restart, Michael was in 13th position and decided to stay on dry tires but when the rain began to intensify everybody was forced into the pits to change tires.

Michael finished the race in P12 and was relieved to do so in one piece. "This was absolutely crazy. We probably should have come in a lap earlier but my team did an awesome job changing tires and we actually came out of the pits in seventh spot. After that I just tried my best to keep the car under me and not hit anything. Cars were spinning and crashing everywhere there was just so much standing water that it was even difficult not to spin while driving in a straight line.”

The conditions were so treacherous that the third-place finisher crashed heavily after the checkered flag on the front straight.

Sunday’s race took place under dry and extremely hot conditions. Once again Michael started from 14th position on the grid but was optimistic that he could break into the top 10 after posting the 11th fastest time in the morning warmup. 

"I had a awesome start and was gaining a couple of positions right after the start. I was in a group of about four cars and we constantly were changing positions in the first three laps. I think at one point we were going three wide on the back straight into the braking zone.  Unfortunately I missed the apex a little going into one turn, ran wide and lost contact with the group. After that I just focused on getting into a rhythm and I was catching them again about halfway into the race. I got really close towards the end and could see three, four cars ahead of me but my rear tires were fading really fast and at that point I realized that I probably would not be able to catch them and I had to settle for another P12 finish.”

Michael chose to look at the positives from the race weekend. “Overall it was a good weekend. We had no trouble whatsoever with the car. We did not hit anything under really difficult conditions in race one and we gained some good points."

The series breaks for a month break before returning to the track in August with a double-header weekend at Mid-Ohio again run in conjunction with the Verizon IndyCar Series.

About Michael Johnson:
Twenty-one-year-old racer Michael Johnson is the first and only paralyzed licensed INDYCAR driver. Johnson was on his way to becoming a professional motorcycle racer, having won races and championships at regional and national levels, when, on August 13, 2005 he was involved in an on-track racing accident which left him paralyzed from the mid-chest down. 

After several years of recovery he has started racing and winning again and now has set his goal to become the first paralyzed driver to compete in the Indianapolis 500. Johnson drives his specially modified race car with hand controls and he became the first paralyzed racer to win in an open-wheel formula car during Round Two of the Skip Barber Summer Series at Watkins Glen International Raceway in 2011. 

He went on to claim two further victories at Road America, and finished the 2011 season with three wins, one pole position, four third place podiums and several top-five finishes. In 2012 Johnson moved up to the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda with championship winning team JDC MotorSports. 

This is Step One of the “Mazda Road to Indy” program. In his first year as a professional licensed INDYCAR driver Johnson had several top-10 finishing positions in qualifying and races on his way to 15th position overall in the series. Johnson is once again competing with JDC MotorSports in the 2014 Pro Mazda Championship Presented by Cooper Tires.