A Powerful Example
4/20/2009Adversity lurks around life's every corner, an inescapable roadblock. Some people are unable to avoid it and, therefore, come to a stop. Others find a way to steer around, and thus, go forward.
Alan Johnson is one of those.
In 1996, Alan crew chiefed as brother Blaine - after four consecutive Top Alcohol dragster titles -- won four Top Fuel races. A professional NHRA championship was there, just ahead, not many quarter-mile passes away.
Then, Blaine was killed in a crash at the U.S. Nationals, and Alan's path to the future was as dark as an unlit country road on a moonless night.
"It was difficult," Johnson admitted not long ago. "There's a million things that goes through your mind: 'It's my fault. I shouldn't be doing this. I don't want to hurt nobody else.'
"A lot of those things are somewhat irrational, but they go through your mind. As soon as you can get past that, and use all of that grief and channel it to something useful, which is what I've tried to do, and my family has tried to do with me, then the results speak for themselves."
Indeed.
Johnson hired Gary Scelzi in 1997 and won three of the next four Top Fuel championships in the Winston dragster. Over five seasons, the Johnson-Scelzi combo made it to the winner's circle 25 times.
After a slow start to the 2003 season, Don Schumacher did what had to be done to get Johnson to tune son Tony's Army car. Bingo! The duo won the first time out.
Tony calls Alan "the best in the world." You think? Through the end of the 2008 season, they won 49 of 130 races - almost 38 percent. Oh, and five consecutive Top Fuel titles. Including 2006, when, in one of the greatest comebacks in sports history, they overcame a 336-point mid-season deficit to claim the championship by winning the season's last pass and setting a national ET record.
Last July, Johnson noticed a strange number on his cell phone. "The caller ID had like six 9s in it," Johnson recalled. "I figured it was a telemarketer."
NO! It was His Highness Sheik Khalid Bin Hamad Al Thani. A member of Qatar's ruling family, the Sheik's goal is to promote drag racing there. He wanted Johnson to form a new Top Fuel-Funny Car team. Less than 48 hours later, Al Thani arrived at Johnson's engineering facility in Santa Maria, Calif., where he builds and sells cylinder heads and other engine parts.
Johnson accepted a partnership and chose Larry Dixon and Del Worsham for Al-Anabi Racing. (And Valvoline for his engines.) Qatar's flag is maroon and white and Al-Anabi means "Go Team Maroon."
Worsham knew his family's team was going to lose its sponsor. "I was sitting in the stands at the U.S. Nationals, watching Top Fuel with my buddy Jerry Toliver, and just like somebody hit me with a brick, the reality of not racing became very real," Worsham remembered. "I saw Alan running the Army car and I thought, 'He has a Funny Car. I'll bet no one has even thought about me as the driver.' I wanted to at least get an interview for the job.
"The next morning I went over to see Jim Head, I was sitting in his lounge, and Alan walks in . . . I'm sure every driver with any sense called him."
They met the next day and soon struck a deal.
Two-time champ Dixon bought out the last year of his contract with Don Prudhomme to get on board the Johnson Express.
"I've got some commercial buildings and contacted him (Johnson) about leasing him space," said Dixon. "I asked him, 'Do you have your drivers all lined up yet?' He said, 'No. What about you?' Basically, if I didn't have a contract, there was interest. That's what got my wheels spinning in that direction . . . The appealing part is what Alan and His Highness are building here. It's long-term. Alan's got a two-year, a five-year, a 10-year plan."
Despite what some think, Johnson is emphatic: "There's no blank check."
"It's no different than the New York Yankees," explained Dixon. "They can outspend everybody but it doesn't buy you a championship. You've got to have a team, that chemistry, everybody on the same page. You can't buy a championship. You have to build it.
"That goes for any sport. The (Philadelphia) Phillies didn't outspend the Yankees, but they won the World Series."
Johnson thinks experience has contributed mightily to his achievements. "If you added up all the runs that my teams have made over the last 10 years . . . there's a chance we could have 40-50 percent more runs than anyone . . . That's certainly a key, learning the racetrack, and how that affects the way the car works.
"Certainly the crew chief has a larger percentage into whether the team is successful here than in NASCAR or IRL. But, you need to balance that. If a NASCAR driver doesn't have a good car, he's not going to win, either. The difference in NASCAR is, when the car is bad, the driver can save it for 20 laps until they come in and fix it. But they still have to have a crew chief who can fix it.
"Here, it's so finite. If the crew chief sets it up wrong, it smokes the tires, and there's nothing the driver can do about it. If the crew chief gives the driver a perfect car, he could red-light, he could be late, he could drive it out of the groove. It's very difficult for the driver to make the car better, if not impossible. Maybe he can peddle it, and that's the importance of the driver. Mentally, you've got to be solid as a rock, because you can make mistakes and screw it up."
Johnson hired Jason McCulloch as Dixon's crew chief and Aaron Brooks to tune Worsham's Toyota Solara. After Dixon won the Gatornationals, though, it was Johnson who flew to Qatar (which now has a drag strip) to present The Wally trophy to Al Thani.
On his Web site, Al Thani said: "Alan has a will to win and a competitive zeal . . . he doesn't need motivation to succeed. He was born with it."
And, the drive to find his way around life's challenges, no matter what.
[ Next column: May 4 ]
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(I.N. Sider is the pen name for an independent motorsports business-person who has a quarter-century of professional experience working in almost every major North American racing series. The writer is not an employee of Valvoline or Ashland Inc. The column is intended to inform, entertain, and stimulate thought on the contemporary motorsports scene. The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of Valvoline or Ashland Inc.)
BackAbout I.N. Sider
I.N. Sider is the pen name for an independent motorsports business-person who has a quarter-century of professional experience working in almost every major North American racing series. The writer is not an employee of Valvoline or Ashland Inc. The column is intended to inform, entertain, and stimulate thought on the contemporary motorsports scene. The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of Valvoline or Ashland Inc.