WARREN JOHNSON DELIVERS STATE OF PRO STOCK ADDRESS
THE JOE CASTELLO INTERVIEW WITH WARREN JOHNSON
Dr. Zook's one-question final exam in the relativistic physics course required no more than five sheets of legal-sized paper, a slide rule, a pencil, and a decent handle on calculus.
That sounds tidy. But only two of 139 students tested that day at the University of Minnesota passed. One of them was Warren Johnson.
"He hammered the idea that to solve a problem, you have to understand the problem," Johnson said of his instructor. That made sense to Johnson. And the farm kid from near Virginia, Minn., who was studying while building engines for boat, circle-track, road, and drag racing on the side, figured he was equipped to take his intellect into the world and make a living.
And long before he earned two International Hot Rod Association series titles (1979-80) and 13 Ironman trophies, long before he recorded 97 National Hot Rod Association Pro Stock victories, Johnson became drag racing's "Professor of Pro Stock."
As his induction into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America this June draws closer, Johnson might not give out many passing grades, either, in certain areas of the sport today. In his recent conversation with WFO Radio's Joe Castello, an interview available through CompetitionPlus.com, Johnson wasn't bashful about assessing and solving problems.
He didn’t have to bring his slide rule or pencil to Castello's interview to answer the question about what effect today's uniform bodies are having on the Pro Stock class.
"The vehicle appearances are just a result of the NHRA trying to make every vehicle equal," Johnson said. "As soon as you start doing that . . . NASCAR went through that with its COT a few years ago – a lot of people lost interest, because they're all the same, just a different decal on the front. People go to the racetrack to root for the particular brand or the driver. Those are the two reasons they're there. When you lose one of those, you've lost 50 percent of your audience, as far as interest. They still may attend, but not with the same enthusiasm they had before. So I'm not really a fan of these cars all looking the same.
"They're building a box," Johnson said. "It's 65 inches wide, 105-inch wheelbase, and 42 inches tall. They're losing their character.
He said, "I don’t see anything outstanding about it, any of the categories anymore."
One thing he applauded was Erica Enders-Stevens' 2014 Pro Stock championship. He said he thought that gave the sport a much-needed boost but expressed concern about whether the class can sustain the interest or what it might do for an encore.
"Erica winning the championship last year was a great thing, especially in the fashion she won it, going down to the final run of the year. That added a lot of appeal for the sport again," Johnson said.
"Now, whether it can carry over by bringing in some 18-year-old with a couple million dollars sticking out of every pocket because his dad's got a lot of money or something like that, that doesn’t bring anything to the sport. Yeah, it brings another competitor, but it doesn't add to the base of the sport, because they're here today, gone tomorrow. There's no duration. That doesn’t build the sport," he said.
"Part of it is that they can't make any money anymore," Johnson said. They've got to be self-funded completely. . . . There is no financial return on it from the sanctioning body. You're talking about maybe $25,000 or $30,000 is the most you could make off a race nowadays. And you spend that much in just parts attrition over a weekend."
That's compared to his early days in the sport, when, Johnson said, "if you worked with manufacturers and the contingency program, you could make somewhere around $40,000 a race just in contingency [payouts], as opposed to the $5,800 you can get today after NHRA has run all the manufacturers off.
"Then," he said, "when you include half the day's involved in oildowns, that doesn't help the sport."
He's not especially impressed with the current trend of only a few engine suppliers catering to the entire Pro Stock class.
"You have to understand how it was achieved in the first place. It was achieved by just a couple of guys working at multiple shops, gathering information from what everybody has done, then taking that information and applying it to their particular program. That's really what has happened. You just had a couple of moles out there, gathering information for the last 10 years, and they've been able to put this all together. They're all running exactly the same, so let's face it: they've got exactly the same information. These few shops that have gotten where they are have been robbing information from each other for 10 years," Johnson said.
"There's no new thought process involved. It's just that it’s taken 10 years. They don’t want to have anything new, because they don’t know anything new. They just know what they've got and how to pick at it a little here, a little there," he said. "They'd have to start a development program, not that they couldn’t do it. But it wouldn’t happen overnight."
Maybe the grand question is "WWWJD – What Would Warren Johnson Do?" if he got to spearhead changes with the sport's largest sanctioning body?
"I can't say I've thought it ALL the way through," Johnson said, "but as someone who has participated in this sport for a few years . . . We obviously have a problem. I've got nothing against NHRA itself, but when you’re not getting any results, the first thing you do is fire the people that aren't getting you the results and bring in a new management team that knows how to promote. You don’t have bean-counters masquerading as promoters. That's what it takes to get any sport going – a promoter, not a bean-counter."
Many have wondered if they'll ever see Warren Johnson and son Kurt Johnson competing again on a fulltime basis.
"If it’s financially worthwhile to me, yeah," the elder Johnson, now 71 years old, said. "If there's enough sponsor support to warrant some more racing, yeah, fine, you'll see Kurt and myself out there.
"We're actively seeking sponsor support. We've been doing that since 2009. At the same time, we want to make sure it’s at the level that we can be competitive. I don’t want to go out there just to go out there," he said. "If I'm going out there to win, I'm going out there to whip everybody's ass."
And if anybody doesn’t like that, he can blame Dr. Zook, who surely would be proud of Warren Johnson today.
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