NHRA News: Former dairy farmer Johnson knows how to milk wins (10/19/2004)

Former dairy farmer Johnson knows how to milk wins

By Rob Geiger, NHRA.com
10/19/2004

"I like the chess-match feel of going up against other crew chiefs."
– Alan Johnson

Quick, name the best crew chief in the sport that has a college degree in Dairy Science. Okay, how about the most talented tuner who has a 180-acre vegetable garden. Hint: he has 42 pro-level national event victories and eight world titles to his credit, four each in Top Alcohol Dragster and Top Fuel. If you guessed Alan Johnson, you'd be right.

The next time a drag racing fan laments the cost of a gallon of milk, they might want to take a minute to thank the fickle agricultural commodities market. If not for a severe pinch dairy farmers felt in the early '80s that resulted in the Johnson family selling their massive herd and planting vegetables instead, one of the sport's best crew chiefs of all time could very well be churning butter instead of tearing up the drag strip.

"It's true, we're a family of diary farmers," said Johnson, 46. "My grandfather started it all and sold everything to my dad. Then I went to Cal Poly and got my Ag degree because I was going to take over from there. But the market went south in '84 so we got out of it and sold all the cows we had."

Johnson inspects the racetrack.
Racers Edge Photography

The fertile soil on their Santa Maria, Calif., spread was good for grazing, but as it turns out it was even better for growing crops. Soon after the Johnsons tilled the ground and planted some seeds, a bumper crop of strawberries, broccoli, cauliflower, and lettuce bloomed before their eyes.

After hiring experts in the field to maximize production on their farm, Alan, his younger brother Blaine, and his father Everett realized they had some free time on their hands so they renewed Everett's love of drag racing. The bug really got a hold of Alan and he actually drove the family's Top Alcohol Dragster for their first few years back.

"I was not very good, to be perfectly honest," Johnson said. "I was driving and tuning and teaching myself how to do both at the same time. We were getting our asses handed to us on a pretty regular basis."

Several beatings later, Alan decided to turn the driving duties over to Blaine at the start of 1988 and the switch paid almost immediate dividends.

"We won the Gatornationals in Gainesville in just our second race with Blaine driving," Alan said. "I hadn't won anything when I was driving so it was obvious we'd do better if Blaine drove and I concentrated on tuning the thing."

Blaine vs. Kenny Bernstein at the 1996 Houston race.
Racers Edge Photography

The all-family team grew together and Alan's self-taught method of tuning the hot rod through trial and error began to work. Within a year, the Johnson family dragster was an unwelcome sight for other racers in the class and pictures of winner circle celebrations started to crowd the walls at the family's ranch house.

Along the way Alan realized he was more comfortable with his own handmade parts. The theory was that if they were going to be better than everyone else, they needed to compete with different components. It's a philosophy that's still paying big dividends, as witnessed by his unparalleled success he's enjoyed as a crew chief in the Top Fuel class over the last nine years.

"I never had a mentor," Alan said. "I had to figure everything out on my own. To me, even though we struggled for several years in the beginning, it was a good thing because it forced me to look at things differently then all the established guys that were out there. A fresh approach never hurts and building your own parts certainly helps also because you tend to have a better understanding of what's going on with the tune-up when you know what's happening inside the engine."

Alan's fresh approach produced a run of four successive world championships in the Top Alcohol class from 1990-'93, during which time Blaine won 26 national event titles. Their huge success at the top level of sportsman racing prompted a move to Top Fuel in 1994.

Once again, Alan eschewed the idea of asking for help and learned the ropes himself. "I'll admit, it was a lot harder to learn how to tune a Top Fuel car than a Top Alcohol car," Alan said. "They are different beasts."

Alan tuned Gary Scelzi to 25 Top Fuel wins and three world titles in four years in the Winston Top Fueler.
Racers Edge Photography

Not surprisingly, Alan soon found his way and by the end of their second season of Top Fuel racing, Blaine earned his first pro Wally at the season-ending Winston Finals. The stage was set; 1996 was going to be an unbridled run at the championship.

With Alan confidently pushing the tuning envelope on every pass, Blaine bolted from the gate with a pair of wins in the first three races, including the season-opening Winternationals and the prestigious Gatornationals in Florida. He later added the Sonoma crown to his resume and by Indy had led the points for 14 of the first 15 events of the year. The title was there for the taking until the unthinkable happened during qualifying for the U.S. Nationals.

Blaine's well-chronicled, high-speed accident in Indianapolis, which tragically took his life at the age of 34, could have spelled the end of the Johnson family's racing legacy. But instead, the team persevered, hiring another up-and-coming Top Alcohol phenom, Gary Scelzi, to fill the seat in arguably the best race car on the circuit.

With steely determination, Alan tuned Scelzi to back-to-back wins in his first two races at the start of the 1997 season and by year's end their domination of the class was the stuff of legends with Scelzi leading the points for 21 of 22 races, including the last 18 in a row, and racking up five wins in 10 final-round showings. For good measure, Scelzi picked up the NHRA's Rookie of the Year award with his championship trophy.

"That was probably the most satisfying thing I've ever accomplished," Alan said of his first professional title. "To come back after my brother's death and prove we would have won the 1996 championship if the accident hadn't happened was very important to me. We were racing with a purpose."

Johnson says he "suspects I'll be back" next year with Tony Schumacher and the U.S. Army team he tuned to the 2004 POWERade title.
Racers Edge Photography

The same rationale of proving a point to his peers has never left Alan. As soft-spoken and introverted as he is at the racetrack, somewhere beneath that unflappable exterior lurks a tuning monster.

"I don't know why it's worked out so well. I guess I just have a knack for it," Johnson said of his success as a crew chief, which has grown to include two more titles with Scelzi and, most recently, the 2004 crown with U.S. Army driver Tony Schumacher. "I've also had the pleasure of working with some very talented crews. It's all about winning for me. I think I work better when the competition is there. I push myself to the edge when we're racing someone who can run the number. I like the chess-match feel of going up against other crew chiefs.

"I'm not a low E.T. guy, per se, who wants to be the No. 1 qualifier. I just go to a race and get a read on the track and the conditions and try to make the right decisions on Sunday. That's really what it's all about; knowing how far you can push your tune-up without going up in smoke.

"We pretty much all use the same equipment these days. Most of the guys out there use my cylinder heads, manifolds, and valve train components. In theory, you should be able to go to any of the big teams and put a car together that would win. It's all in the crew chiefs approach and the crew's ability to prepare the car. The guys that makes the best decisions get the ice cream at the end of the day."

You can take the boy out of the dairy farm...

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