Johnsons Win in Family Way

In an era of corporate sponsors that furnish huge rigs to parade their name as well as haul race cars from track to track--and pay all the bills and big salaries--the Johnson family is a throwback to an earlier era.

Blaine and Alan Johnson, along with their parents and sister Pam, maintain their top-fuel dragster in a garage on a 200-acre farm of strawberries, broccoli and cauliflower on the outskirts of Santa Maria. This is a family operation.

Blaine does the driving, Alan is the chief mechanic, dad Everett manages the team and drives the truck to all the races, and mom Agnes pays the bills. None of them take a salary.

“Every penny we make goes back into the car and the operation,” said Blaine, 33, who won four National Hot Rod Assn. top-alcohol dragster championships in sportsman classes before moving up to top fuel two years ago.

“Alan owns his own engineering company, and he and I earn our living making cylinder heads for race cars,” Blaine said. “He also makes the decisions on our car, and dad and I help with the work. As far as I’m concerned, Alan’s a genius. His engines put down a really strong pass.

“And yes, we use our own cylinder heads, and the ones we use are the same as the ones we sell.”

The Johnsons, with moderate sponsorship from Travers Tool Co. of New York, had a winning season last year. Blaine was No. 1 qualifier seven times and was runner-up in four NHRA final rounds before getting his first top-fuel victory last October in the Winston Select Finals at Pomona.

At Pomona, in successive runs, he beat drivers with strong financial backing from Budweiser (Kenny Bernstein), Valvoline (Joe Amato), Western Auto Supply/Havoline (Shelly Anderson) and Miller Genuine Draft (Larry Dixon). For that, he won $50,000 and an additional $50,000 for running the event’s low elapsed time of 4.689 seconds in beating Dixon in the final round.

It was the third quickest run in NHRA history.

“The car earned $320,000 last year,” Johnson said. “It takes a minimum of $500,000 to operate a top-fuel team a full season, but we get by on a lot less. You can do that when the driver, crew chief and truck driver don’t get a salary.”

And what about Pam? “She’s our biggest fan,” Blaine said. “She would work on the car too, if she could, but she’s an administrator at Marian Medical Center in Santa Maria.”

Today, weather permitting, the Johnsons will open the 1996 NHRA season with the first round of qualifying for the 36th annual Chief Auto Parts Winternationals at the Pomona Fairplex. Final rounds will be Sunday after more time trials Friday and Saturday. “We’ll be back with the same car that won here in October,” Blaine said. “About all Alan did was change a few new parts. The way it ran the last time, we’d just like it to repeat.”

The car’s success isn’t all Alan’s mechanical work. Blaine’s lightning-like reflexes are also a factor.

At Denver, in the final round against Winston champion Scott Kalitta, Johnson had an unbelievable hole shot off the starting line. Because it takes 0.4 seconds for the amber lights to change to green, any reaction time under 0.4 means a red-light disqualification.

Johnson hit .402, about as close to perfection as possible. Before they got into the racing business, the Johnsons operated a dairy farm with 500 cows. It was there that Blaine got the driving itch.

Blaine’s wife, Kym, remembers a family dinner during which the brothers started recounting their days driving the dairy trucks.

“They were laughing and talking about Blaine standing up in the truck and their mother said, ‘I never knew that. No one ever told me that before.’ ”

When the men in the family decided to get a top-fuel car, Mrs. Johnson opposed it. She thought it was too expensive. “I think my brother secretly ordered our first top-fuel chassis without mom knowing it,” Blaine said. “From her point of view, there was no way we would run such an expensive car. She knew, that in drag racing, you can get sucked in deeper and deeper because it’s like an addiction.”

The victory at Pomona was the big turnaround.

“It made for a happy off-season,” said Kym Johnson. “Blaine went around with a grin on his face all the way to Christmas.”

Motor Racing Notes

RACETRACKS--Roger Penske is offering 3.25 million shares in Penske Motorsports Inc. to help finance completion of the California Speedway on the former Kaiser steel mill site in Fontana. Penske Motorsports was organized last September and is also a holding company for racetracks in Brooklyn, Mich., and Nazareth, Pa. Its revenue last year, including earnings from the two operating speedways, as well as merchandise, tires and accessories, totaled $42.1 million and net income was $6.8 million. . . . Groundbreaking for a half-mile dirt oval on the Perris fairgrounds in Riverside County will be held Tuesday.

COPPER CLASSIC--U.S. Auto Club Silver Crown cars, supermodifieds and midgets will share the spotlight with NASCAR Featherlite Southwest Tour stock cars in the 19th running of the Copper World Classic this weekend at Phoenix International Speedway. All finals will be Sunday, 50 miles for the Silver Crown and stock cars and 25 miles for the midgets and supermodifieds.

NECROLOGY--Donny Schmit, one of the few world motocross champions from the United States, died Jan. 19 of aplastic anemia, a blood disease, in Ramsey, Minn. Schmit, 29, won the world 125cc title in 1990 and the 250cc crown in 1992.