Looking Back is a new regular feature by Will Dale, telling the stories, the successes, the trials and the tribulations of a racing life now in its seventh decade and a team deep into its fifth. Dick Johnson might never look back. Lucky for all of us, Will does.
THE JOHNSON family occupies many places within the sport's history books – but in one area, they stand alone.
Dick Johnson and son Steven are the only father and son combination to stand together on the podium of a major Australian touring car race that fell on Father’s Day.
The occasion was the 1995 Sandown 500, a time when Dick Johnson Racing was at the height of its mid-1990s golden era.
Their run of success had begun 12 months prior, when Dick and John Bowe won the traditional 500km enduro from a lowly 15th on the grid.
That race was just as significant for Steven, who came home eighth with Allan Grice aboard the team’s second Falcon in what was his first touring car endurance race.
Fast forward to the 1995 event and the DJR trophy cabinet had swelled further with victory in the 1994 Bathurst 1000 and Bowe’s 1995 Australian Touring Car Championship triumph.
However, the dominant team entered the Sandown enduro under a cloud, as did all of its fellow Ford runners.
The new EF Falcon’s performance relative to Holden’s also-new VR Commodore during the ATCC prompted a major parity adjustment prior to the ‘500.
A full 20 centimetres was cut from the trailing edge of the EF Falcon’s front undertray, slashing its front downforce.
The yellow and blue Falcons qualified side-by-side on Sandown’s fourth row, Car 17 a smidge quicker than the Charlie O’Brien-qualified Car 18.
The lead DJR car quickly rose to fifth in the opening stint, only for Bowe to earn a 10-second stop/go penalty for passing a recovery truck in pit lane when he arrived for the car’s first stop during a Safety Car period.
Johnson served the penalty under green conditions a few laps later, returning to the track a full 50 seconds off the lead.
However, the Safety Car caused a split in strategies as other frontrunners waited to make their first stop as scheduled.
That call, allied to attrition among the Holdens, put a DJR Falcon into the lead.
Not Car 17, though: Car 18!
As the race neared its midpoint, Steven found himself leading a touring car race for the first time, and with his dad in second place almost half a minute down the road.
Bowe took over the lead from O’Brien soon after their final stops and built a sizable lead, albeit with both cars saving fuel due to their earlier-than-scheduled first stops under the Safety Car.
The team brought Bowe in for a splash of fuel with less than 20 laps to go, but such was his margin that Car 17 returned to the track still in the lead.
Bowe took the chequered flag at the end of the 161st lap some 38 seconds ahead of fellow Ford runners Glenn Seton/Grice.
O’Brien brought Car 18 home third and to secure a father-and-son Johnson podium.
Got a story you’d like to hear? A topic you’d like explored? A race or car you want to know more about? Email will@djr.com.au and it might just become a future feature story on Looking Back.
