Dick Johnson Racing

Mustangs

With no local Ford product suitable following a change to international Group A touring car regulations at the end of 1984, and as Ford Australia were not interested in homologating a mooted turbocharged XF Falcon sedan for Group A racing, Johnson ventured to Germany and purchased a pair of Zakspeed constructed Ford Mustangs for the 1985 and 1986 seasons. While the Mustang years brought limited success, reliability and good-handling in the underpowered cars enabled Johnson to claim runner-up in the 1985 Australian Touring Car Championship, while his one and only victory aboard the Mustang was in the Group A support race at the 1985 Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide. The Mustang, like almost all other cars in the ATCC, was outclassed by the JPS Team BMW 635 CSi of Jim Richards who won seven of the championships ten races. The team had actually entered and qualified one of the Mustangs at Bathurst in 1984 (painted white with #71) in the new Group A category, but it was only there for a shakedown run and insurance should there a repeat of 1983 and was withdrawn after Johnson had put the XE Falcon onto fourth on the grid.

When the team purchased the Mustangs from Zakspeed, the engine power was quoted as 310 bhp (231 kW; 314 PS). However, the car the team took to Bathurst in 1984 was described as 'sluggish' by both Dick Johnson and his co-driver John French with Johnson's best time being 5 seconds slower than the class leading V8 Rover Vitesse and some 14 seconds slower than his Group C Falcon. In the weeks following the race the team put the 5.0L Ford V8 engines on the dyno and found them to be only producing approximately 260 bhp (194 kW; 264 PS). Extensive rebuild and development of the engines at Johnson's Brisbane Engine Centre before the start of the 1985 ATCC saw power figures back to what was originally quoted.

While the Mustang struggled to match the pace of the Richards BMW in the ATCC, the August homologation (which also increased power to around 340 bhp (254 kW; 345 PS) brought the car back into winning contention. Dick dominated the Valvoline 250 at Oran Park and was heading for an easy win until an axle broke causing a wheel to fall off the car, ironically handing the win to Richards. The Mustang had received larger axles as part of the homologation package and the team had the new parts available, but had simply run out of time to fit them before the Oran Park race.

In mid-1985, Johnson signed triple and defending Bathurst 1000 winner Larry Perkins to be his co-driver for the Castrol 500 at Sandown and the James Hardie 1000 at Bathurst. Johnson led early at Sandown until a broken axle saw the team lose many laps in the pits repairing the car. At Bathurst, the team entered both Mustangs but only Johnson and Perkins as drivers. After the 1983 Hardies Heroes crash, the second No. 18 car (Johnson's ATCC car) was entered as an insurance policy in case something happened to the No. 17 Mustang. Ironically Johnson and Perkins qualified both cars for Hardies Heroes, though the No. 18 car was withdrawn before the race started. Against the might of Tom Walkinshaw Racing's three V12 Jaguar XJS', Johnson qualified fourth and ran strongly until the cars oil cooler broke a weld and had to be bypassed on lap 16, losing the team three laps. Johnson was unhappy as the oil cooler had actually split the day before when the car was going over the speed humps in the pit lane. Before he left the circuit that night he left instructions for his crew to replace the cooler, but returned on race morning to find it had only been repaired and not replaced (ironically the split occurred not at the repaired weld, but on the opposite side of the cooler). With no time left to change it the car was forced to start with the repaired cooler which subsequently failed. From then Johnson and Perkins drove as hard as they could with the engine temperature "off the clock" and were rewarded with a seventh-place finish, though Perkins' first lap of the race was a slow one as the left front wheel had not been secured properly with the wheel nut spinning off in the braking area at the top of Mountain Straight. Perkins then managed to get the car back to the pits without the wheel falling off the car.

Rumours had floated around the Bathurst pits that DJR had toyed with the idea of actually running both Mustangs in the race with the second car to be driven by Belgian jeweller Michel Delcourt and none other than former Ford hero Allan Moffat who was without a drive for the year thanks to Mazda pulling out and was actually commentating on the race for Channel 7. Moffat indeed drove the Mustang during practice, but this had only been part of his duties as an expert commentator to evaluate the leading (Australian) contenders. Delcourt was entered in the race in Graham Moore's Mitsubishi Starion Turbo, but the car was withdrawn following practice. Larry Perkins reportedly stopped DJR from fully entering the second car, rightfully (according to Johnson) reasoning that the team was not set up to race both cars.

With the arrival of the first truly competitive Group A Holden Commodore, the new VK SS Group A, and the new turbocharged Nissan Skyline DR30 RS, plus the continued development of the Volvo 240T, the Mustang quickly fell behind its rivals in 1986 and Johnson could only finish sixth in the ATCC with a best finish of 4th in the opening round at Amaroo Park. For Sandown and Bathurst the team signed former Grand Prix motorcycle star and Moffat team driver Gregg Hansford to be Johnson's co-driver. After failing to finish at Sandown, extra development work saw the Mustang competitive at Bathurst where Johnson qualified the car in sixth place, though the car was still out paced by the Nissans and Commodores. Before Hardies Heroes Johnson actually tripped while exiting the traditional breakfast and broke a bone in his foot, though he still drove in the runoff. Johnson and Hansford drove a steady race to finish in fourth place outright despite the 302 cui Ford V8 engine running low oil pressure throughout thanks to a crack in the engine block that was only discovered when the team stripped down the car and engine after Dick had raced it in the Group A support race at the 1986 Australian Grand Prix meeting in Adelaide. The Mustang also had a cracked windscreen from which had been there since before Hardies Heroes, and like 1985 before he left the circuit for the night Johnson instructed the team to change the windscreen. Upon returning to the circuit on race morning an angry Johnson found the cracked windscreen still on the car with no time to change it before the race, though thankfully the crack did not spread during the race.

Johnson's last drive in the Mustang came in the Group A support race for the 1986 Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide. After qualifying 8th, he failed to finish the 32 lap race.

Sierras

In 1987 the team switched to the Ford Sierra RS Cosworth and began a 17-year run of naming rights sponsorship with petrochemical company Shell. It expanded to a two-car effort for the first time with Gregg Hansford becoming Johnson's first full-time teammate. The new 340 bhp (254 kW; 345 PS), turbocharged Sierra's were plagued with reliability problems, usually blown turbos (according to Johnson in a 2015 interview with Australian Muscle Car magazine, DJR went through some 37 turbochargers in testing and race meetings in 1987), and this let the team down considerably, with only one win recorded in the 1987 Australian Touring Car Championship at the Adelaide International Raceway (Dick's first ATCC win since 1984), though significantly this was the first Group A win anywhere in the world for the RS Cosworth. Following the ATCC, the Ford Sierra RS500 was homologated which addressed most of the car's shortcomings. The RS500 was more powerful (470 bhp (350 kW; 477 PS) in 1987) with larger turbos and was also more reliable.

The team's poor run continued at the Sandown 500, where Johnson easily qualified his new Sierra RS500 on pole but the car blew its engine in the race morning warm up and was withdrawn, and Bathurst 1000 where both team cars were out of the 161 lap race before the end of lap 4 (Neville Crichton crashed the No. 18 Sierra he was to share with Charlie O'Brien on the 3rd lap with the Commodore of Larry Perkins which the Johnson / Hansford car suffered differential failure a lap later). Qualifying at bathurst also proved controversial for the team with the two Sierra's excluded from the results of Hardies Heroes when they failed a post runoff fuel check. While the fuel was found to be a lower grade and actually produced less power, the rules had been broken. But the year ended well, with Johnson again winning the Group A support race in Adelaide at the Australian Grand Prix in November. Johnson, who was suffering fuel feed problems late in the race, just held on for his first win in the RS500 from the fast closing Nissan Skyline of George Fury.

In 1988 John Bowe replaced Hansford in the team and began an eleven-year stint as the driver of DJR's second car. With the team having overcome the reliability problems of the previous year and team manager Neal Lowe having come to grips with the engine management system earlier than his Australian counterparts (to the point where Lowe and the team were the first in Australia with the expertise to burn EPROM chips for the Sierra's), Johnson and Bowe finished an easy first and second in the 1988 and 1989 championships. Dick Johnson would later claim that he and his team were on a mission in 1988 after having been embarrassed at 1987 World Touring Car Championship round at Bathurst by the Ford Europe backed Eggenberger Motorsport Sierra's which not only proved faster but far more reliable (the Eggenberger cars would finish 1–2 on the road at Bathurst but would later be disqualified for technical infringements). He would also claim in the interview with Australian Muscle Car magazine in 2015 that another part of his motivation was that he had originally tried to buy an EPROM chip burning machine from British Sierra expert Andy Rouse in 1987, but Rouse had refused to sell one and that a chance meeting with one of the engineers involved with the Ford RS200 rally car project led to the purchase of the machine as well as Lowe travelling to the United States to learn how to use it. ^[7]

After the differential failure which had put the No. 17 Johnson car out of the 1987 Bathurst 1000 on just lap 4, Johnson took it upon himself to solve the problem of the Sierra's weak drive train. In April 1988 after working with Melbourne-based Harrop Engineering (run by former racer / engineer Ron Harrop), DJR successfully homologated a modified version of the Ford 9-inch differential for the RS500 Sierra. Although the Sierra was a European car, the near bullet proof differential was seen as vital to Sierra runners in Australia due to the standing starts used in Australian racing rather than the rolling starts used overseas. Later in 1988, Ford also released their own official, lighter version of the 9-inch diff, but the DJR unit would prove to be popular due to its lower cost. During 1988 Johnson also managed to homologate the Australian designed and built Hollinger gearbox for the cars which proved more reliable than the German built Getrag gearboxes that were common in most Group A cars at the time. ^[8]

In August 1988 the team air-freighted Johnson's ATCC winning car to England to compete in the RAC Tourist Trophy at Silverstone which was a round of the European Touring Car Championship. Johnson easily qualified on pole, almost half a second ahead clear of the leading Eggenberger Motorsport and Andy Rouse Sierras, and went on to an early race lead. The car was eventually slowed by a lengthy stop to replace a failed water pump and would ultimately finish the race in 21st place, but they had proven that the DJR Sierras were now the fastest in the world after also claiming the touring car lap record with the fastest lap of the race. ^{[9] [10]} The speed of the DJR Sierra created interest and at the end of 1988 Robb Gravett of British team Trakstar purchased two DJR Sierras to supply his team with his Sierra RS500s, winning four races to finish the 1989 season 2nd in class and 4th overall (Gravett, thanks to his Shell sponsorship in the British Touring Car Championship through its Gemini Oils brand, had driven for DJR at Bathurst in 1988 and 1989). ^[11] In 1990, Robb Gravett won the championship with nine race wins.

After the two lead cars suffered mechanical troubles, Johnson and Bowe commandeered the John Smith / Alfredo Costanzo car (the oldest and slowest of the three entered being Johnson's 1987 Bathurst and Bowe's 1988 ATCC car) to finish second in the 1988 Bathurst 1000 behind the Sierra of fellow Queenslander Tony Longhurst and his co-driver Tomas Mezera, before winning in 1989 after leading every lap despite a late race loss of turbo power. Johnson claimed his first pole position at Bathurst in 1988, and again sat on the front row in 1989 alongside Peter Brock, who was now Sierra mounted. Brock won the start of the 1989 race, but in a show of power, Johnson blasted past the No. 05 Mobil 1 Racing Sierra on Conrod Straight into a lead that he and Bowe would not lose.

In 1990 Johnson narrowly lost the ATCC to the Gibson Motorsport Nissan Skyline R32 GT-R of Jim Richards (who also drove the previous model Skyline HR31 GTS-R until the car dubbed "Godzilla" arrived late in the series). The team's second car with Englishman Jeff Allam and Kiwi Paul Radisich finished second at the 1990 Bathurst 1000. Dick Johnson recorded two wins during the series in round 2 at Symmons Plains and again in round 3 at Phillip Island. The win at the Island (another 1–2 with Bowe finishing 2nd) would prove to be Dick Johnson's 30th and last ATCC race win.

In the 1991 ATCC, the DJR team were outpaced by the Nissans of Richards and Mark Skaife with Bowe finishing sixth and Johnson ninth, with the Tooheys 1000 at Bathurst proving no different. In 1992, a team restructure saw Ross Stone appointed team manager with Lowe concentrating on building the first 1993-spec Ford EB Falcon V8. Bowe finished fourth and Johnson eighth in the ATCC. The Shell Sierras showed more speed in 1992 which both Johnson and Bowe attributed to the CAMS imposed 7,500 rev limit on the Sierra's (this was also applied to the V8 Holden Commodore's), and against the GT-Rs which had turbo and weight restrictions placed on them by CAMS, Bowe won the round at Sandown, before Johnson claimed pole at Bathurst with the fastest ever time recorded by a Sierra on The Mountain of 2:12.898, undercutting the previous Sierra best time set in 1990 by German driver Klaus Niedzwiedz by over a second. ^[12] In the wet, crash shortened race, Johnson and Bowe finished second behind the GT-R of Richards and Skaife despite the Nissan crashing after the red flag was shown.

The final races for the DJR Shell Sierras came in the Group A support races for the 1992 Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide in November where John Bowe finished both races in second place behind Jim Richards. Johnson debuted the team's new EB FalconV8, the first Falcon built by the team since 1984. Despite trouble over the interpretation of the new 5.0L V8 rules which saw Johnson start from the rear of the grid, he finished the first race in a strong eleventh place before improving to ninth in the second.

1990s

For the new all V8 era, DJR switched to Ford EB Falcons. Aside from John Bowe winning the opening 1993 round at Amaroo Park the team remained winless until it won both the Sandown and Bathurst endurance races in 1994, as well as the season ending Australian Grand Prix support races. In 1995 Bowe won the championship. A repeat victory at Sandown that year augured well for another Bathurst win until an incident with Glenn Seton forced the number 17 Falcon from the track while leading.

At the end of 1995 team manager Ross Stone and chief engineer Jim Stone left to form Alan Jones Racing. While the Holden Racing Team dominated the 1996 season, Bowe finished the championship in second and combined with Johnson to finish second at Bathurst. Consistency in the 1997 championship enabled Bowe to again claim the runner-up position in the championship. DJR's only win in 1998 was by Bowe at Winton. For the endurance races Johnson and Bowe drove separate cars for the first time since 1988 with Steven Johnson joining his father.

At the end of 1998, Bowe left DJR after eleven years to join PAE Motorsport. Paul Radisich was hired as his replacement. While the team struggled in the 1999 Australian Touring Car Championship developing new Falcon AUs, the team was competitive at the Bathurst 1000 with Radisich and Steven Ellery leading most of the race until making contact late in the race with a slower car. In his final race, Dick Johnson finished fourth with son Steven.

2000s

In 2000 Steven Johnson took over the number 17 Falcon from his retiring father. Radisich teamed with Jason Bright to finish second at the Bathurst 1000. In 2001, Johnson won the Canberra 400 and teamed with Radisich to win the 2001 Queensland 500. This would be the team's last win for seven years.

In 2002 a third car was entered at selected events for Greg Ritter. At the end of 2002 Paul Radisich left the team. Max Wilson, Warren Luff and Glenn Seton would each complete one year stints as the driver of the second car between 2003 and 2005. At the end of 2004, Shell brought their 17-year naming rights sponsorship of the team to an end.

For 2005 sponsorship from Westpoint Corporation was secured. However, by the beginning of 2006 Westpoint was in receivership. Sponsorship for the 2006 season came from two of Dick Johnson's own business ventures, FirstRock Mortgage Centre and V8 Telecom with Will Davison driving the second car. The ventures were not successful and by the end of the year, the team's long term viability was in doubt. As a result, businessman and sponsor Charlie Schwerkolt bought a 50% shareholding in the team.

For 2007 sponsorship from Jim Beam was secured with the year highlighted by a third place at Bathurst. At the Bahrain round, Johnson finished third and Davison fourth. In 2008, Davison won the Eastern Creek round, the team's first win since the 2001 Queensland 500.

In 2009, James Courtney replaced Davison. Two Triple Eight built Falcon FGs were purchased with Courtney winning at the Townsville 400 and Sydney 500.

2010s

In 2010, James Courtney won the series. A third customer entry was prepared for Tekno Autosports, driven by Jonathon Webb. By mid-season owners Dick Johnson and Charlie Schwerkolt were reported to no longer be on speaking terms, and the team became fractured. Team manager Adrian Burgess announced he would join Triple Eight in 2011, and as a result of a clause in his contract giving him an 'out' if Burgess left, Courtney also left at the end of 2010 after winning the series. ^[13]

At the end of 2010, Johnson and Schwerkolt dissolved their partnership. Scherkolt retained ownership of one Racing Entitlement Contract (REC) which was leased back to DJR for 2011 and 2012. ^[14]

For 2011, James Moffat was signed to replace Courtney. ^[15]

For 2012, the team expanded to a four car team, preparing customer cars for Triple F Racing with Dean Fiore driving and Paul Morris Motorsport with Steve Owen. ^{[16] [17]} At the end of the year, Jim Beam elected not to renew it sponsorship, the REC leased from Team 18 was returned, while the Paul Morris Motorsport REC was sold to Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport. ^{[18] [19] [20]}

A sponsor was lined up for 2013, but it was conditional on V8 Supercars confirming its television arrangements by the end of 2012. As this did not happen, the deal lapsed and again DJR's future appeared in jeopardy. A last minute sponsorship with Wilson Security was secured and the team appeared with two entries for Tim Blanchard and Jonny Reid, ^{[21] [22]} with Steven Johnson moving into position of General Manager. Wilson Security remained with the team as title sponsor for the remainder of 2013. ^[23] Reid was replaced by Chaz Mostert before the Wanneroo Raceway round of the championship. ^[24] Mostert won a race at the Queensland Raceway round. ^[25]

For 2014, Scott Pye and David Wall were recruited to drive. ^{[26] [27]} The REC leased from Triple F Racing was returned and another purchased from Paul Morris Motorsport. ^[28]