Morrison – From fathers and daughters like John and Ashley Force to brother teams like Matt and Andrew Hines, drag racing in the NHRA seems to be about as natural a family activity as sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner.
No better place to find a team’s next driver or crack team member than right at home.
And it’s no different for Allen Johnson and Matt Smith, Sunday’s respective pro stock and pro stock motorcycle winners.
Johnson’s father, Roy, builds the engines his son takes from start to finish, an engine that gave Allen the top pro stock qualifying time this weekend and ultimately a win in 7.132 seconds over Ron Krisher, who blew his transmission on the final run.
“It’s been a fairy tale this weekend. We had the fastest car, the No. 1 qualifier,” Johnson said. “Everything you can do, we’ve done.”
In other words, the polar opposite of this year’s race in Chandler, Ariz., a race at which Roy suffered a heart attack, the type of setback that could mark the beginning of a long season.
But recovering from the heart attack has allowed Roy to help Allen to fourth in the points standings, well within the top eight spots needed to make the Countdown, the NHRA playoffs that begin in four weeks.
“I feel better at the end of the day,” Roy Johnson said. “When I get down to 10, 12, 14 hours, I can keep going. I couldn’t do that before.”
And while that race was a setback for the Johnson and Johnson team, they’ve been sharp since Arizona, picking up their first win of the season Sunday at Bandimere Speedway.
“We’ve been a win waiting to happen since the first of the year. We just hadn’t caught a break,” Allen Johnson said.
Johnson got his break in the final with the failure of Krisher’s transmission. Johnson ran just 192 mph in the final, signaling a problem with his own engine. But with Krisher’s car barely moving, it was an easy trip to the winner’s circle.
Smith’s dad, Rickie, didn’t make the trip to Colorado, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t have a role in his son’s win.
Unsure about the right tuneup for the Bandimere surface, Matt turned to his dad, an IHRA pro stock racer.
“We got lucky hitting the tuneup as close as we did the first pass,” Smith said. “I’ve got to thank my dad. He led me in the direction of what to do. We had the bike to beat all weekend.”
Smith, the pro stock motorcycle points leader, beat No. 2 Angelle Sampey with a 7.400-second time in the final round, which didn’t matter after Sampey red-lighted the start.
Sometimes it can help to have a friend who treats you like family. Matched against former teammate Chip Ellis in the semifinals, Smith’s bike stalled on the burnout. By rule, a racer can stage in that situation, leaving his competitor and his broken bike behind, but Ellis waited until Smith was ready.
“We have a dollar bet every time we race, even in qualifying or eliminations,” Smith said. “We have fun together, and I’d wait for him, too.”
Staff writer Joel A. Erickson can be reached at 303-954-1033 or at jerickson@denverpost.com.
