Spirt of the Sport: Roger E. Johnson

As a part of our desire to profile and pay tribute to the people who make up our Solo community we are embarking on a journey to chronicle the people who have received the Roger E. Johnson Spirit of the Sport award. This particular award is given every year to a person chosen by the three immediate past recipients of the award. With that in mind it makes sense to start with the person who the award was named for and who was the first to received this (dubious?) honor the one, the only, Roger E. Johnson.

RR: Roger, while I have been associated with the National Solo scene for a little over fifteen years you have been around much longer than that. When did you first begin autocrossing?
REJ: My first event was in 1978 . . . . I had run some TSD rallies with the Northwest Ohio Region SCCA (Toledo) and was invited to an autocross to help with tech.  The chairperson entered me into the event against my wishes!

RR:  You have long been associated with Corvettes. Was that what you started autocrossing in or did you work your way up to the top of the Chevrolet food chain?
REJ: My Dad had a Triumph TR-3 that I drove frequently, but I had wanted a Corvette for many years.  As an easily-influenced car-crazy kid working in a service station, the ’63-71 Corvettes that occasionally visited really drew my attention.  I reached the point when I could afford both the car AND the insurance & ordered a new ’76.  I had a ’78 at my first autocross & immediately ordered a ’79 to get the gymkhana suspension and the higher-output motor, since I got beat by 12+ seconds . . . 

RR: While there are some that complain about the amount of money one needs to prepare a top-flight Stock class car today, is it true that some people actually had an engine blue printed on a brand new car? Where you one of those people? What caused the SCCA to ‘outlaw’ this practice?
REJ: I’m sure that the practice was far more prevalent with the softly-tuned American V-8′s than the efficient imports – there was a bigger percentage gain.  My experience says that like most performance modifications, the anticipated/advertised gains were greatly exaggerated!  Each time I did it, the results were ‘unfortunate’:  no matter how much you talk to engine builders about the rules, they revert to their background & experience, and 25 years ago, they surely weren’t Solo-aware!

Once, the guy (drag racer) put in a cam that “measured stock!”, yet the car wouldn’t idle below 1200 rpm – so he wanted to put in a looser torque converter.  Geez.

Another try: after I got the car back from a noted showroom-stock endurance team, a disgruntled former employee called and told me everything that was done that was illegal, and it was a LOT.  That engine never saw competition.  Sigh.

Last try I bought a new 1988 Corvette and had it drop-shipped to the prep shop. While they did a masterful and legal job, on the engine, I could NOT get the car to handle – so it was back to the untouched ’86.  (Lord, I pissed away money on that ’88!).

And while I’m not completely up-to-the minute on the rules, I’m not familiar with the practice being ‘outlawed’?  There were changes that disallowed balancing, etc. but that surely doesn’t preclude blueprinting, just makes it more expensive.

I think that the biggest change is that engines today are FAR more efficient from the manufacturer, and the gains are even more negligible.

RR: How many Championships have you won? Have all of them been in Corvettes? Did you have a favorite car over the years?
REJ: I think six in Solo II, nine (consecutive) in Pro Solo, and three overall Pro Solo. I spent a little time in a Viper, but the wins came in Corvettes.  The yellow 1986 Corvette I had is my sentimental favorite, it was a compromise with my wife:  she wanted another child, I wanted a new car.  I ordered it with an automatic, Z-51 suspension and radio delete (saved 12#!).  When I sold it in 2001(?) to Bruce & Mary Wentzel it had 5300 miles on it.  They’ve put another 2000 on it I think.

RR:  When did you last compete at Nationals? What were you driving and why?
REJ: After the 2003 season, I ran my son’s F Street Prepared Pinto at a couple of National Championship events – it’s not a competitive ride, but way fun.  And the guys in FSP are just the best.  It was relaxing, low-pressure and enjoyable.  My son is talking about dragging the car to Lincoln this fall, we may run it together.

RR: Who among your contemporaries did you admire most? Why?
REJ: The folks that started at the bottom of the class standings and WORKED on their driving skills for years and eventually ended up with a trophy;  the guys that were more thrilled about their first (12th place) trophy at Nationals than those of us that won again; the people that came to Nationals year after year with NO hope for a trophy, but rather came for the sheer enjoyment of the people and the cars and the event; the people that don’t sacrifice family and finances in their autocross efforts.

Those of us that were lucky and won a few times had our ego driving us to Kansas each year – I deeply admire those that come for far better reasons.

RR: Even though you have been absent from the National Solo scene for a while who is out there that you admire today? Why?
REJ: Anybody that goes to the Solo Nationals and accepts a time-consuming work assignment is my hero, somebody who compromises their own competition effort to help make this the incredible event it’s become: i.e., the folks that put the success of the event before their personal success.  You have only to look at the ‘Chiefs’ list and beyond to find the folks I admire the most.

And that applies at all levels of the sport – especially the people that keep the Regional programs alive.

RR: What do you love about autocross?
REJ: That there is so MUCH to love about it!  There is such broad appeal to persons with a great diversity of interests, some of which have nothing to do with cars.  There’s room in the hobby to fulfill the passions of the builders, the drivers, the socially-inclined, the organizers, the marque bigots, the vintage competitor, the creative.  Each to their own interest makes it all come together pretty well.

RR: One of the things that I remember from the Kumho Kapers talent show in Topeka when you were MC was all the gifts of computer keyboard keys that you received. What letter was it and explain to our readers what the joke was.
REJ: Aha – well, long before the name “Kumho” was heard on this side of the Pacific, it was the BF Goodrich Talent Show . . . . . earlier that year (1985 maybe?) the handful of people that put together Team.Net (Andy Hollis, Lisa Kenas, Karen Babb, Josh & Mark Sirota. et. al.) taunted my computer illiteracy as much as I publicly teased them as GEEKS, so they pooled their resources and gave me a used computer, keyboard, modem (960 kb – the words appeared on the screen one letter at a time) etc. so I could join them on the ‘Net.

The used keyboard did not have a functioning “Z” key which elicited great humor with each post that required it’s use (you have to be pretty geeky to understand), and one of the Sirota brothers got HUNDREDS of plastic “Z” keys, passed them out to everyone at that year’s National with instructions to hand them to me.  It went on all week long.

RR: You (I think, correct me if I’m wrong here) were a comparatively ‘late bloomer’ that is you were older than the average autocrosser of today. How old were you when you started autocrossing.
REJ: Ummm – I was 25 at my first autocross, please don’t let this Norwegian Blonde hair fool you.

RR: Given the fact that you were the long-time MC of the banquets at Nationals and further that someone in that position has to possess a certain amount of BS how do you reconcile that with your long association with sheep?
REJ: It’s a hair thing again – I’ve had VERY curly hair my entire life, and given that autocross participants are 80%+ male, I’m sure that to one drunken, lonely, horny competitor at some long ago National, my hair looked like one of his ‘girlfriends’ back home.

That caught on with all the REST of the lonely, horny drivers. I chose the role as MC/Announcer at events to keep my butt to the wall for self-protection.

RR: Given that this is a public interview can you relate two or three of your more colorful moments when you were a regular Solo competitor?
REJ: Most of those are tied in with the non-competition parts of my time in the sport. Many of those moments were while serving on the Protest Committee & spending time with some of the finest people in SCCA who served on the committee, balanced against some of the true ‘characters’ that appeared before it for adjudication.

But likely for me, the most memorable were during the Talent Shows – the breathtaking creativity of our fellow members & the astounding things they came up with to entertain us . . . year after year.  Davie Looman, Bob Strange, Charlie Davis, Bev Vach,  . . . . . geez, I shouldn’t have started with names, there are FAR too many.

RR: What individuals do you remember most on your way to becoming a legend? Will they acknowledge that they even know you?
REJ: First & foremost, John Rastetter, now with the TireRack I think.  Dick Edwards, Herb Johnson, Tom Harley, Dave Sanders.  Bill Johnson.  Terry Bassett.  Most of all, Howard Duncan.

RR: If I were to aspire to become a recipient of the Roger E. Johnson Spirit of the Sport award what would you suggest I do to earn it? Is that legal?
REJ: Well, for Dean Sapp it meant ‘streaking’ one of the Awards ceremonies in Salina. Others have taken a more conventional approach.

I think it means keeping things in balance – this is an optional activity for all of us, nobody has to do it to cover Maslow’s basics. That means there needs to be a payback for involvement, some reward.  For most of the participants, that reward is ‘enjoyment’, not winning.  So adding to the enjoyment of the sport (which again, can be realized in various ways appropriate to our individual interest) is just one way to keep folks coming back.

RR: When are you coming back?
REJ: Umm – finished with the political stuff, eh?  The short answer is that I never left Solo II, but rather it left me.  See the next question.

RR: We have been asking this final question of all of 2008’s National Champions. If you could change or make just one rule for Solo what would it be? Why?
REJ: Thanks for the soapbox.  While I make no judgments pro/con on the Ladies Classes (it is TOTALLY up to them), the explosion in categories/classes has diluted competition to the point that we’ll next be classing vehicles by color.

You can only parse the differences in vehicles and prep so far … We constantly (and accurately) preach that it is the DRIVER that makes the difference, yet we split vehicles and prep to ever smaller segments. This is NOT to say that the new classes/categories are wrong – far from it.  But folks vote with their feet and money and entries, and we must maintain prep levels (categories) that are of interest to current and potential autocrossers, and class most competitively vehicles that are of interest to current and potential autocrossers.

Hence, when (at the National level) participation in a class/category/car falls off, it must make room for those classes/categories/vehicles that are of current interest. Twenty Open classes are more than enough at the National level.   And the great thing about our structure is that in this area, Regions can do whatever they choose w/r/t classes.
Many autocrossers whine that the sport isn’t taken seriously in the wider world of motorsports, I believe that the astounding number of classes we have is much to blame. Yet even now, there will most certainly be somebody on SCCAForums.com advocating yet another class or category, or whining that a grossly undersubscribed class is about to be dropped.   My God.

RR: Are there any parting thoughts?
REJ: While I wish you luck with ‘rogues-racing.com’, I’d be happiest if few read this far!

Tagged as: Corvette, FSP, Roger E. Johnson, Spirit of the Sport, Super Stock