NHRA News: A behind the scenes look at Alan Johnson's racing and cylinder business (12/10/2000)

A behind the scenes look at Alan Johnson's racing and cylinder business

by Craig Hoelzel
12/10/2000

One might think that with the 2000 NHRA Winston Drag Racing Series season complete, the championships decided, and the awards ceremony over that most race teams have a nice three-month vacation break before the 2001 season begins.

Alan Johnson's Foxen Canyon Motorsports shop is a busy place, even during the off-season.

NOT!

Even with the holidays looming, most teams are working full speed ahead to purchase inventory, design new paint schemes, sign new sponsors, build and assemble new cars, and test new technology. This all must be completed by mid-January so that the teams can test their race vehicles and sharpen their driver's skills.

Hard at their winter work
This scenario was very much evident during a recent visit to the Foxen Canyon Motorsports facility of Winston Top Fuel champion car owner and crew chief Alan Johnson in Santa Maria, Calif. Johnson's Gary Scelzi-driven Team Winston Top Fuel team and Bruce Sarver-wheeled

At Johnson's related cylinder-head business, raw blocks of 6061 billet-aluminum, foreground, are transformed into racing cylinder heads, like the one being removed by Todd Bastain.

e-moola.com Funny Car operation are housed for the winter in the state-of-the-art 15,000-square-foot race shop located in the middle of hundreds of acres of farmland in Central California. The climate-controlled building lends itself to great working conditions for the crewmembers, who are sequestered from the wind and cold, allowing them to work on the race cars in a high-tech race shop atmosphere.

The Foxen Canyon Motorsports shop is filled with banners, photos, and trophies that showcase the long history and winning ways of the Johnson family, which has been involved in the drag racing industry for nearly 50 years, beginning in 1953 with the blown-gas Pontiac of patriarch Everett Johnson. Today, this rich history continues with Scelzi winning three NHRA Winston championships, in 1997, 1998, and 2000, and Funny Car newcomer Sarver's number-nine finish this year.

Getting 'a head' in business
While the race teams work at full speed in the race shop, Johnson flits in and out of the building, overseeing consultations on the new race cars between heading to the other side of the property to another building complex, where a dozen workers are employed at Johnson's cylinder-head business.

A CNC machine in action.

The multimillion-dollar cylinder-head business is one of the most respected in motorsports. Launched in 1985 to design and manufacture heads for Johnson race cars, other competitors soon were standing in line to buy a set of the billet heads. The success of this business is now evident by the 18-hour/two-shift days as the business cranks out state-of-the-art cylinder heads for drag racing, sprint car, and NASCAR teams, and, recently, for Harley-Davidson motorcycles.

When it comes to cylinder heads for drag racing, Johnson is emphatic on one point: "All of our cylinder-head designs are the same for everyone we sell to in drag racing. The same ones we run on our cars are the same ones our competitors run." In fact, when Johnson and Scelzi lost the Top Fuel championship in 1999 to Tony Schumacher, the Exide Top Fueler won with Alan Johnson cylinder heads. The staff of dedicated workers prides itself in building the very best cylinder heads in motorsports. It's important that every time a crew chief changes cylinder heads between rounds, he can be confident that each set is identical to the set he's taking off and that there are no variances.

Building a better head
Johnson is in the midst of the design and production of the company's newest Stage III billet-aluminum cylinder head. His Stage I and II cylinder heads dominated Top Fuel and Funny Car in the 1990s, the result of countless hours of R&D, both in-house and on racetracks. As testament to Johnson's thoroughness of design, since 1992, there have been only two changes in the Stage I to the Stage II heads. The new heads, however, will reflect some considerable design changes that should be evident after the teams test before the new season begins. The Stage III heads are being manufactured around the clock to meet the heavy demand of race teams stocking up for the 2001 season, most of which will begin test sessions in January with the new heads.

Computers are a big part of the cylinder-head business. (Top) As Johnson perfects the design of his new Stage III cylinder head, (Bottom) Scott Stocking designs a new porting program.

It takes a number of steps before a raw block of 6061 billet-aluminum is transformed into a quality high-performance Stage III head. The normal turnaround time for this process is about four weeks.

Johnson first introduced CNC porting of drag racing heads to gain the attention of crew chiefs throughout the industry. This process is one of the biggest gains in consistency for the crew chief working on a fuel engine.

First, the CNC machine cuts the deck and drills the bolt holes. Then it is flipped over and the top side is machined. Next, the intake and exhaust flanges are drilled, guide holes are bored, and seat pockets and rough porting complete step three. Then the seats and guides are installed, porting is finished, a finish valve job is performed, and the pushrod tubes are installed. The heads are then deburred and bottom taped before the final flow-bench check, after which they are ready to be shipped.

Working on safety, too
Besides overseeing cylinder-head manufacturing, Johnson also works with the motorsports industry to design new engine parts that will increase performance and within the sport to promote safety. Two of Johnson's newest projects - a "driver tub" and an "inflatable driver seat" - are designed at protecting the drivers of these 320-mph landlocked missiles.

Johnson, center, explains design changes of the new Stage III head to Bastain, left, and Rick Wilkinson.

After witnessing the violent crashes of Tony Schumacher and Larry Dixon in Memphis this year and Scelzi's two crashes last year in Topeka, the need was evident to construct a tub. The Kevlar and carbon-fiber driver tub is similar to that used on Indy cars to protect the driver's entire body in the event of a violent crash.

The inflatable seat will utilize a bladder that pumps up around the driver to keep his body tight within the cockpit area. It will tighten the five-point seat-belt harness around the driver even better as well as protect the driver from side impacts in the event of violent tire shake or hitting the wall. Scelzi is already using the HANS (Head and Neck Support) system with great results thus far.

Said Scelzi, "With all the technology available to us, I'm really glad that Alan and companies like HANS are designing better driver cockpits."

Twice the data, twice the work
The team's two-car team philosophy has proven valuable because the team can acquire twice as much data from the racetrack and test combinations that can be very beneficial to winning races. At the Automobile Club of Southern California NHRA Finals in Pomona, the two Johnson-owned cars came the closest to both being in the winner's circle for the first time all season. Scelzi won in Top Fuel, but John Force poured on the power and drove around Sarver in the Funny Car final to keep the Johnson cars from sweeping both fuel titles.

Devin Purdue installs seats and guides to a cylinder head.

Rick Wilkinson then tests each head on a computerized flow bench.

Even though Johnson has two cars in separate classes, he believes there are a lot of similarities that help maximize the performance of both cars.

"There is plenty of crossover between the cars with the fuel systems and the five-disc clutches to acquire data on," said Johnson. "The secret to having two successful race teams is all about money. Money can get you all the right parts and all the right people. If you don't have strong sponsorships on both cars, it can be very draining on both teams."

So if you think Johnson and his race teams or his cylinder-head business have a leisurely winter before the 2001 NHRA Winston Drag Racing Series season begins, you are mistaken. They are working around the clock to repeat as champions on the racetrack and as one of the best cylinder-head businesses in all of motorsports.

Alan Johnson Cylinder Heads
1097 Foxen Canyon Road
Santa Maria, CA 93454
(805) 922-1202
fax: (805) 349-7129
www.AlanJohnson.com (cylinder heads)
www.GaryScelzi.com(race team)

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