To say Allen Johnson is on the “chip” is a major understatement.

“Yeah I’m mad,” Johnson, the veteran Pro Stock driver from Greeneville, Tenn., admits.  “I guess that makes you fired up don’t it?”  

The source of his ire, or new found determination, is a 2010 season chock full of missed opportunities.

Johnson has taken inventory of his arsenal, including new cars and a new team driver with Vincent Nobile, and he’s hit the testing circuit so hard that he plans for the reverberations to be felt from Pomona to Englishtown with every stop on the tour bearing the brunt of his hunger for redemption.

To say Allen Johnson is on the “chip” is a major understatement.

“Yeah I’m mad,” Johnson, the veteran Pro Stock driver from Greeneville, Tenn., admits.  “I guess that makes you fired up don’t it?”  

The source of his ire, or new found determination, is a 2010 season chock full of missed opportunities.

Johnson has taken inventory of his arsenal, including new cars and a new team driver with Vincent Nobile, and he’s hit the testing circuit so hard that he plans for the reverberations to be felt from Pomona to Englishtown with every stop on the tour bearing the brunt of his hunger for redemption.

He’s not lamenting an unfortunate one-race suspension during the Countdown event in Charlotte for failing a random substance abuse test citing “hardly anyone but the media brings that up”.

What gets Johnson’s goat … or in his case, Mopar elephant … is the fact the Johnson & Johnson team had the right parts and pieces to win a championship, but for the inconsistencies of his race car.

“It had a mind of its own and on Sunday we couldn’t anticipate what the h*** it was thinking,” said Johnson of his Dodge Avenger. “That got us more than anything. I think we’ve corrected that; but we’ll see. We’re working on making everything with a bigger window to be more consistent. We have to fix that in order to win championships. I can see what’s wrong and now I just have to fix it. I think we have the best power in the pits and we just have to go out there and be consistent.”

Johnson is bringing a brand new, redesigned Rick Jones chassis cloaked in a new Dodge Avenger body to the war this season. And, the team will have a full preseason to test out the NHRA’s Pro Stock rules implemented last March following a mishap-plagued event last February in Phoenix. The NHRA, in an attempt to make the Pro Stock cars more stable in the last 320 feet of the race course, implemented new regulations which included spoiler/wicker minimums as well as universal rear weights.

Johnson believes his team has a good handle on what he felt were unnecessary rules.

“The new RJ car is pretty much a totally redesigned chassis from RJ that we hope is going to be more consistent,” said Johnson. “What really got us last year was that d*** weight rule, when they made that 1090 weight rule. We adapted our cars over the past few years trying to get them lighter and lighter in the rear. That’s where our strong point was at. And then when they slapped that 1090 rule on us it really affected the way our car worked. We went back a couple years and changed the chassis back to where we were then and running them heavier on the rear; hopefully that’s what we’ve fixed.”

During the off-season Johnson has split his time between working towards making his car a terror for the competition and training a pair of rookie assassins.

New to Johnson’s assault will be Nobile, son of past IHRA mountain motor Pro Stock champion John Nobile and NASCAR sensation Kurt Busch.

Nobile will do battle behind the wheel of a new Jerry Haas-built Dodge Avenger for the Mountain Valley Tire-sponsored team of Nick Mitsos. Busch will drive the Dodge Avenger formerly driven by Vinny Deceglie.

It isn’t hard to note the excitement in Johnson’s voice when he speaks of the potential these new drivers possess.

“He’s really smooth and he’s just 19 years old,” said Johnson of Nobile. “He’s full of piss and vinegar. I think he’s pretty smooth because John’s taught him well. He just made a run and it was the first time he’s been in a car since Reading I think. He jumped in there and other than a few low shift points he went right down there. I think we’re going to make one more run with him before we take everything out and put it in my car. If they elect to run all the races this year I think he’ll be a strong candidate for rookie of the year because I think he’ll do well.”

As for Busch, Johnson believes Pro Stock legend Roy Hill did a good job of tutoring the oval track racer on the routines of driving a factory hot rod.

“He’s a great student I’d have to say, first of all,” explained Johnson. “He listens and he’s smart. He’s just really low-key and he analyzes everything and then puts it to work. So it’s been a pleasure.

“I think Roy had him coached up pretty good but he just didn’t have any power in those cars. That was a real task for [Busch] to jump into one of these and race so much faster. But he adapted very quickly; he’s a natural driver of course. Heck he’s drove everything. He’s got a really good feel of the throttle and the burn out and all of that. Now he’s just got to go out there and get laps and run against somebody else.”

The one aspect Johnson finds equally appealing behind Busch's natural talent is his experience in another non-drag racing series and together they try to process the data to implement beyond his current drag racing training.

Busch conveys roundy-round experience and that’s something Johnson finds intriguing. Late last season Johnson ran some road course events at the urging of his sponsor Mopar.

“We’ve talked a lot about round track stuff,” Johnson confided. “I may go over there and run something like a truck sometime this year just to play around. But I’ve done the Viper road course deal and we talked an awful lot about that because he’s done some of that.”

But, for now, Johnson’s focus is on drag racing and making the most of the horsepower gains his father/engine builder Roy Johnson has extracted from the team’s 500-inch Chrysler engine program.

“I’m just ready to race and ready to win,” Johnson says point blank. “We have a team capable of winning and running strong. That’s what it takes in NHRA Pro Stock. Now you know why I’m fired up.”

 

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