Rising star Jett Johnson has secured his maiden motorsport’s title at Winton last weekend by securing the TA2 Muscle Car title in the NAPA Auto Parts Ford Mustang.
Son of Repco Supercars Championship race winner Steven and grandson to five-time Australian Touring Car champion Dick, who were both on hand to celebrate the title with the youngest Johnson generation winning it convincingly from Graham Chaney.
Johnson set-up his title run with nine race victories and three pole positions during the six round season, but Winton provided its challenges after an engine failure on Friday.
Results of second, fourth, fifth and fourth during the quartet of races sealed the title as he targets a run at the Turtle Wax Trans Am Series, with the potential of this being run parallel with a Super2 or Super3 campaign as a stepping stone to the Repco Supercars Championship.
“It was a bit of a rocky start after the engine dramas on Friday, but we performed strong all weekend, no other dramas and I was able to keep it clean and ultimately got the victory,” said Jett.
“I was really conservative, especially in the first two races when it was wet to make sure I got the championship. Once I knew I had the lead and I couldn’t be overtaken, I gave it a good push in the last race and ran with the leaders.
“I hope I did my grandad proud in that last race. He wanted me to push and I feel I did. But I reckon he’d definitely be proud of the burn outs that I did at the end of that last race!”
Father Steve runs the Ford Mustang during a race weekend and has watched first hand Jett’s progression all season.
“He drove really well in the last race, but we had our struggles on Friday when we blew an engine and we were here until 2am on Saturday morning fixing it,” said Steven Johnson.
“Some say that we were unlucky with that, but I consider it luck to have happened on Friday, rather than in qualifying or the races.
“To guys like NAPA Auto Parts who have shown faith in him at an early age, and all of his other supporters who have come here this weekend, we hope we’ve done all of them proud.
“And we seriously have the best team in the business. Our guys are so dedicated and they deserve most of the credit for this.”
Dick added: “What we are most proud about is that he is a good kid. He’s not a smarty and very humble, and that’s one thing we want most – we want him to be a good person over anything else.
“The weekend didn’t start off too well with an engine lunched all over the road, but these things happen and fortunately that was on Friday, not Saturday or Sunday. It was a blessing.
“He drove conservative all weekend, which is unusual for him, but he came home with the goods.”