TRUE BLUE BATTLER

Dick Johnson’s career as a driver and owner is one of dizzying heights and agonising lows, with his tally of five Australian Touring Car Championship titles and three Bathurst 1000s the result of dedication, hard work and perseverance.

When Dick Johnson hit a rock while leading in the early stages of the 1980 Bathurst 1000, it could well have been the end of the road for the Queenslander. The privateer had put it all on the line when he created his own Dick Johnson Racing entry following the demise of his former team, Bryan Byrt Racing.

With his Ford XD Falcon damaged beyond repair after hitting the football-sized rock, it was the reaction of the public that got Johnson back on track. The public donation, matched by Ford, allowed Johnson to buy a new XD Falcon and make amends with victory at Bathurst the following year.

“There’s a lot from 1980 that attributes to the win in 1981,” reflected Johnson.

“We went to Bathurst in 1980 with a car that we built from a second-hand ex-police car and we had one race prior to that, which was at Amaroo.

“Amaroo was a pretty good thing for us; we were leading most of the race until right near the end the back tyre wore out and I had a spin and ended up coming second.

“We went to Bathurst and we were fairly confident the car was going to go well there because it had been a long time since a Ford had been up front, let alone leading the race.

“Anyway we went there and pole position was worth 10 grand and second was worth nothing.

“We missed pole position by about a tenth of a second or something to Kevin Bartlett.

“Unlike today when you can run the cars flat out all day, you had to be a little conservative with these things because they weren’t as technologically advanced as what the cars are today.

“We ran around there at a fairly hot sort of pace and pretty much broke the field up. We were then looking really comfortable, just cruising around, when I came around through The Cutting and saw the white flag out saying there’s a slow moving vehicle there.

“That was in the days when they had tilt tray trucks picking up all the broken down and crashed cars. And I just rounded the corner and at the crest you can’t see much, but what I saw was the truck, and once I really got over the top of the hill I saw there was a rock in between the truck and the bank.

“I really had nowhere to go, so I tried going up the bank and ended up hitting the rock. It was the best thing that happened. At the time, it was the worst thing, but it turned out to be the best thing.

“We’d put an awful lot on the line to get to there and it seemed like it was going to be the end, but because of one of the callers to Channel Seven (who launched a fundraising appeal), what happened saved us.

“Seven’s switchboard was absolutely jam-packed with people ringing in to donate money to get us back on track, and one of the callers was Edsel B Ford II (Ford Motor Company heir and then assistant managing director of Ford Australia).

“Edsel said that for every dollar donated he would match it one-for-one – and he did. He may have thought it was only going to be four or five grand, but 78 grand later, he’d given us a pretty good budget to do the full season the following year, which I needed really bad. In a sense, that put an awful lot of pressure on me.

“I’m not one to let people down, so it made me, not try harder, but it made it more important for me to get out there and make sure I did the best job for all the people who supported us.

“That was a lot of money in 1980. But we never really did it easy because there was only the two of us. It was (Dick’s brother) Roy and I. We were building the car together, and I was building the engines and gearboxes.

“Roy and I used to drive the truck everywhere and we’d live in the truck. We didn’t have the budget to stay in motels. There were some interesting times, I’ll tell ya.”

With a brand-new car, Johnson won the first of five Australian Touring Car Championships heading into his Bathurst redemption.

“It was an absolute blinder of a championship because it was one that came down to the last race between Brock and myself and there was only one point in it,” he recalled.

“It was a race around Lakeside and we were wheelto-wheel for the entire duration of the event.

“Fortunately, I won, which meant it was the first championship, and then to go to Bathurst that year was really something special.

“We had a really good, strong car; we had a good combination in (John French) Frenchy and myself, and the car was really strong leading the race quite easily. And it just so happened that we did everything right during the day, and I think it was about lap 121 where there was a big shunt on top of the Mountain, and it was between Bob Morris and Christine Gibson, and that sort of blocked the track a fair bit because a lot of cars came around unaware of what was in front of them and completely blocked the track.

“So they red flagged the race and because the race had done more than 75 percent, they declared us the winners.

“They went back a lap and actually Bob Morris, who was second at the time, ended up coming second even though his car had crashed, so that’s obviously what the rules were all about.

“It was a hell of a relief for me because all those people had really stuck their faith behind us back in 1980, and to come back the following year and not only win the championship but win the race (Bathurst), which was pretty cruel to us the year before, was special.”

The highs and lows continued. Further championships with the Falcon followed in 1982 and 1984, though there was more heartbreak at Bathurst, most notably with his Shootout crash into the trees in 1983.

The switch to the Group A regulations left Johnson with an uncompetitive Mustang, until the Sierra came onboard and Johnson became the dominant force in the late 1980s with championship wins in 1988 and 1989 and a crushing victory at Bathurst alongside John Bowe.

“We led every single lap of the race, which was something that is pretty much unheard of these days,” said Johnson.

“That was a real awesome motor car. We made all the right decisions at the right time and made the right calls as far as strategy goes and put the right tyres on etcetera, etcetera, and it just worked out very well for us.

“Bowie and I just trucked around there and it was just a pleasure to drive. We’d been battling the car during practice earlier in the week and it was a bit of a dog to drive.

“It wouldn’t respond to what we were trying to achieve and it was very nervous. And then we made one change to the rear of the car with the shock absorbers, and all of a sudden this car, without a doubt, was the nicest thing to drive and you could do anything with it.

“When you get in a car that’s like that it’s just so easy to drive because you can drive it at 110 percent and it wouldn’t really matter because it’s not going to bite you. It was very predictable and it just did everything right.”

Johnson and Bowe won again at Bathurst in 1994. With the change from Group A to the home-grown V8 formula, Johnson returned to the Falcon for the latter years of his career.

“I think it would have had to have been one of the best cars I have driven around there,” said Johnson of the 1994 Bathurst-winning Falcon.

“We were almost 30 metres from putting a lap on Brad Jones and Craig Lowndes before they had a safety car and caught back up. And bugger me dead, with about 12 laps to go Lowndes passes John Bowe and I got on the radio to John and I said, ‘You are kidding me, you’re not going to let some snotty-nosed kid beat you, for crying out loud!’

“That sort of hyped Bowie up a bit more and he put his head down and really dug deep and got back. Brad Jones was in the car when I was doing my stints and I didn’t have any trouble with Brad.

“He was driving his backside off to try to nail me, but he couldn’t get near me and Bowie got in for the last stint against Craig and it was a bit of a nail-biter. And our car was really, really strong and it went to the end of the race and it was fantastic; it was a really good win.”

From his first championship season in 1970 to his last in 1999, Johnson was always competitive. In his final season in 1999, at age 54, Johnson finished inside the top 10 in the championship and took fourth place in the Bathurst 1000. The true blue battler was a fighter to the end.