Johnson Jobbed At Indy
By Chris Martin
Photos by Ron Lewis
9/6/05
  he 51st NHRA U.S. Nationals SHOULD be remembered for Del Worsham’s superb double dipper by winning the $100,000 Skoal Showdown and Funny Car.
It SHOULD be remembered for a runner-up gutty effort by Hurricane Katrina victim Richie Stevens of New Orleans, who turned in one of the great efforts in his young Pro Stock career only to fall before the Greg Anderson juggernaut.
It SHOULD be remembered for the 4.45s of Top Fuel points leader Tony Schumacher and his bid for a fourth straight win, only to lose in the final to Larry Dixon in Don Prudhomme’s Miller Lite car.
Instead, the race WILL be remembered for what happened to
Pro Stock Motorcycle competitor Steve Johnson in the first
of the four pro final rounds. He ran Matt Smith in the
final, left on him, and beat him to the finish line stripe.
No ifs, ands or buts about it, Johnson was ahead at the stripe
… and the win light goes to Smith! If the win stands,
and it likely will, the jobbing of Johnson will go down in
drag racing history as the single biggest robbery in the sport.
In an effort to understand why Steve Johnson’s wheel may not have triggered the win light in the final round of PSM DRO contacted Bubba Corzine, past winner of the U.S. Nationals in Comp Eliminator, who has worked for both the NHRA and IHRA over the years setting up, repairing and maintaining timing equipment. He gave us the following explanation of what might have caused the incident in the finals as well as the strange discrepancies in speeds during the weekend.
“I wasn’t there but I’ve seen this kind of thing happen over my career and here is what I think could have happened. I think that probably the NHRA set-up is using just one infrared reflector at the finish line. We always use to have two but I think they are using one now. Anyway with just one reflector you have to give the infrared signal all the power it has to maintain the beam. When I’ve done this in the past I’ve seen a lot of strange bounces from the beam resulting in bogus times from cars with little front tires or wire wheels.”
One has to wonder why at the most important and significant race in the sport the most important part of the timing system, the finish line beam, wouldn’t be the one that had double or triple redundancy and the least likely to fail. --JB |
And this wasn’t just any race, this was drag racing’s Indy 500, it’s Daytona 500. If there is one place where you don’t want to fall on your ass and comes off as rubes, it’s the Nationals. NHRA, was rolling along real well and then in the Pro Stock Bike final, they catch a lemon meringue pie flush in the face. Whipped cream and lemons all over the tuxedo.
I stayed up Monday night and watched the whole show, and I thought all in all, it was one of the better Indys of recent years, some fresher faces in the final, and an opportunity to see some history from the Army camp. All that crashed to the floor when I saw the Smith-Johnson show.
I admit I was pulling for the former Southern Californian; there was some prejudice here. He has been doing Pro Stock Bike since the Summernationals of 1987 and didn’t win his first NHRA national event until this year’s Gatornationals. All in all, the 44-year old had a 1-7 final-round record. Anybody who knows Johnson is aware that he is a keyed up, loquacious, friendly, out-going guy, and I seriously doubt that anyone tries harder. Like Donna Summer, he works hard for the money. I think part of the reason that he’s managed to maintain substantial sponsorship for the majority of his racing career, is that despite a less-than-spectacular record, he has a winning personality. People like Steve Johnson.
And that’s not to denigrate Matt Smith, the son of Pro Stock ace Rickie Smith. I’ve never met the guy, but he seems cool and he definitely has talent. The 33-year-old began his career in 2004 and in just his fifth start got runner-up to Antron Brown at that season’s Mid-South Nationals. Of course, he IS GOING to be a national event winner some day, but that day wasn’t Sept. 5, 2005.
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