Warren Johnson spoke out last Sunday at Seattle about the NHRA's track-prep performance in an effort to defend not only the honor of the Pro Stock class but to force the sanctioning body to make drag racing safer.
 
In the process, he offended Funny Car drivers Jim Head and Bob Tasca, who returned fire and challenged Johnson to drive a flopper -- blindfolded, even. While Johnson conceded that he “probably got a little overzealous last weekend,” he held fast to his convictions that prompted the war of words.
 
As for whether he'll take up Head and Tasca on their dare, Johnson said, “You never know. I've driven just about everything, but at this point I've got other fish to fry.
 
“This is just big-time auto wrestling,” Johnson said Friday while preparing to qualify his K&N Pontiac GXP at the National Hot Rod Association's FRAM-Autolite Nationals at Infineon Raceway.
 
He referred to Tasca and Head as “laptop cowboys” who “didn't really listen to what I said -- they didn't hear what I said. I said it didn't take much talent to drive those cars down the racetrack, because everything is pretty much taken care of. I didn't say they didn't have any talent.”
 
He said of Tasca's reaction, “That's the case of a spoiled brat.”

Warren Johnson spoke out last Sunday at Seattle about the NHRA's track-prep performance in an effort to defend not only the honor of the Pro Stock class but to force the sanctioning body to make drag racing safer.
 
In the process, he offended Funny Car drivers Jim Head and Bob Tasca, who returned fire and challenged Johnson to drive a flopper -- blindfolded, even. While Johnson conceded that he “probably got a little overzealous last weekend,” he held fast to his convictions that prompted the war of words.
 
As for whether he'll take up Head and Tasca on their dare, Johnson said, “You never know. I've driven just about everything, but at this point I've got other fish to fry.
 
“This is just big-time auto wrestling,” Johnson said Friday while preparing to qualify his K&N Pontiac GXP at the National Hot Rod Association's FRAM-Autolite Nationals at Infineon Raceway.
 
He referred to Tasca and Head as “laptop cowboys” who “didn't really listen to what I said -- they didn't hear what I said. I said it didn't take much talent to drive those cars down the racetrack, because everything is pretty much taken care of. I didn't say they didn't have any talent.”
 
He said of Tasca's reaction, “That's the case of a spoiled brat.” 
 
Then he said, “I have nothing against Bob (Tasca) or any of the guys out there,” he said. “But they've got to start looking at it like we're not the only people out there. They're not the whole show.”
 
His contention, he said, was that the racetracks need to accommodate the needs of every racer, “not for the less than one-tenth of a percent of the race cars that are out there.” He said, “Maybe we need to help NHRA get this situation fixed. I was speaking for every car that's not a fuel car. I don't want to see anybody hurt out there.”
 
On a light-hearted note, Johnson got a kick out of Head's remark about this feud being “one senile old man to another.”
 
While Head and Tasca both complained that Johnson could have made his point without insulting the nitro-class drivers, Tasca moved the argument to another plane. The Mustang driver, in volunteering to swap cars for a grudge match, prefaced his remark by saying, “I've never driven a hunk of s--- GM in my life, but I'll drive one … “
 
Did Johnson take offense at Tasca's shot at the K&N car's manufacturer?
 
“Absolutely -- because I think the same thing about them damn Fords,” he said. “You know what 'Ford' stands for. You're standing in front of the mirror in the morning. You're shaving. You got your Ford T-shirt on. You look at it. D-R-O-F. Oh yeah -- driver returning on foot.”
 
Should the sport revive the brand-loyalty rivalries?
 
“Those days have gone by,” Johnson said, “and you can relate this to the COT (Car of Tomorrow) in NASCAR. It's the same car with different decals on it. They've lost that identity with Ford, GM, and Chrysler. To me, that's not healthy.
 
“There's a lot of people who bought Oldsmobiles when I was racing Oldsmobiles. And when I went to Pontiac, there were a lot of people who switched from those Oldsmobiles to Pontiacs,” he said. “So there's a lot of identity of product with a competitor that the spectators take to heart. At Daytona, they use to have the GM section, the Ford section, and the Chrysler section, because they'd get in fights if they were seated among each other.”
 
He said that scenario isn't likely to recur -- “not when they homogenize the race cars. Pro Stock's a lot better off than Funny Car, as far as vehicle identity, but it's still not what it was 15 years ago.” Furthermore he said that if one brand dominates “year after year after year, the sport goes away.” 
 
He said he hadn't spoken with either Head or Tasca since the verbal skirmish escalated.
 
“We're not going to waste the time talking to each other. We're going to work on our race cars,” he said. “At least Jim's paying attention. We've got a problem that needs to be addressed and addressed quickly before we have any other fatalities.
 
“We're going to have to get them [nitro-class drivers] and NHRA mad enough -- and the public mad enough -- to get this problem fixed,” Johnson said. “And that's my mission. I'd known Mark for 30 years. That hurt me.
 
“We're all involved in it. I think the fuel cars have the most say-so in it, because they are the ones that really propagated this problem because of the fact they shortened the racetrack. Not the fuel cars that did it -- it was the NHRA that came up with this quick fix. Well, this quick fix has been in effect for two years, and unfortunately we've killed more than Scott Kalitta. We're in the multiples now.”
 
Among the drivers lost are Top Alcohol Funny Car drivers Bobby Martindale (at Atlanta, 2008) and Neal Parker (at Englishtown, June 2010) and Top Alcohol Dragster driver Mark Niver (at Seattle, last week). 
 
“I don't have anything against the fuel guys, but we've gotten into a situation because of a problem that they had. Now we need to address how we're going to correct this disaster we've got going on now so everybody benefits,” Johnson said.
 
“I want to make the spectators happy, first and foremost, but I want to be safe doing it. We're trying to salvage a sport -- these spectators are down 30 to 50 percent. Let's forget about ourselves and let's look at the sport,” he said. “It's up to the NHRA to make damn sure that everybody in the stands -- they're their only customer -- is entertained. The racers and the sanctioning body can both be  replaced. Obviously the ADRL and 'Pinks!' have proved that, because they'll have twice the crowd we have out here on any given event they have -- and there isn't a damn fuel car on the property.”    
 
He said if Head walked over to his pit, he would ask him, “What are we going to do about this?”
 
Johnson said he is not a design engineer but called for “an energy-absorbing device of some sort. They're using a net that was designed to stop something 10 times heavier than a race car. We're talking about significantly different types of cars that have run into (the sand). How can they say we really need only one type of containment? All I know is that it has to be an energy-absorbing device of some sort that progressively slows down a car.” 
 
Drivers, already confronted with split-second choices when they anticipate trouble stopping, sometimes consider hitting the guard wall to scrub off speed and minimize damage to themselves and the car when they hit the sand or gravel pit.
 
“That's the very point we're trying to get at: Why should you be faced with a choice like that?” Johnson asked.  
 
The problem is a domino-effect situation, as Johnson sees it. “We had one unfortunate tragedy with Scott Kalitta, so their immediate reaction was to shorten the racetrack. Well, when they shortened the racetrack, they kept gluing it. They started losing tires. So then they stopped gluing it. Now we've got this problem. One thing leads to another,” he said. “We've got to fix the whole problem.”
 
Pacific Raceways, he said, contributed to the problem. “If they had left that track alone, Mark Niver would still be here. The cars are going too fast. So what do they do? They shorten the track, I think, 480 feet.” He said the cars used to turn off on the road course. “if that had been left alone, Mark Niver would still be here.”
 
Top-end materials and grooming, he said, are at the heart of the dilemma. “(The NHRA) took the asphalt out of there and putting gravel -- which they groomed incorrectly to start with -- and then put two nets up there that are designed to stop a 26,000-pound airplane, not a 2,000-pound dragster,” he said. “I think that's NHRA's (fault), because NHRA's the one that mandated shortening that race track and moving up those nets 480 feet. That gravel was leveled off -- it's like skipping stones on water. This is not an 80,000-pound truck that's going across there. They won't penetrate into that gravel. They'll just glide across it.”
 
Johnson suggested that the NHRA work with engineering experts at the University of Nebraska or elsewhere to come up with improved top-end protection: “They need to bring in people who are involved in that aspect of motorsports. We don't need any novices designing something based on a knee-jerk reaction that got us in this problem in the first place.”
 
He said he doesn't think the cars, like IndyCar series machines, can be built to come apart to disperse energy. “That'd be more like bringing Evel Knievel.”
 
Graham Light, NHRA senior vice-president of racing operations, said, “There's a long-standing mechanism in place to address issues such as Warren's, and that's PRO (Professional Racers Organization). Warren's a board member. He has been a board member for years, so he understands the process. And he knows there are open lines of communication that exist. He knows the channels to pursue to get resolution.

“As in the past, NHRA will investigate the most recent incidents and makes changes to make the sport safer,” Light said.  “Working with the University of Nebraska has led to today's top end layout, and we will continue to seek guidance and counsel from this group and the racing community to improve upon the current system in place.”