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Car Racing - Howard Johnson

On Wed 15th Oct 2025, Howard gave members a fantastic history of his life and his deep seated interest in car racing. Growing up in Echuca, Howard's interest in driving and car racing started at the tender age of 6, where an interest he turned into a highly successful career with Bathurst Car Racing.

Howard trained first as a fitter, adding welding, drafting and other qualifications as his involvement with cars and racing grew. While working on the Northwest Shelf gas pipeline he developed an interest in off-road car racing, using his skills to build parts and enhancements for off-road racers.

Howard has worked with most of the big names in motor sports: Reg Allen, Paul Weil, and Gary Rogers among others. A highlight was working with Larry Perkins on fabrication and development of racing strategy as Larry went on to win the Bathurst race several times in the 1990s. Howard’s longest association was working with Gary Rogers for 23 years on vehicle design and fabrication.

The Bathurst race is a very tough event involving long hours for the entire crew. There are typically 10 crew members in pit lane, including the engineer, the owner, crew chief, mechanics (2 per car), wheel changers, etc. Improvements such as safer cars, enhanced driver skills, engineering and technology have made the race faster and safer. It is not unusual for a car to cost over $1million.

There are multiple considerations in running a motor-racing team, including not only the car, but driver salary; monitoring technology; fuel; spare brakes, engines and clutches (a clutch can cost $15, 000 and can burn out on the starting grid), tyres; travel and accommodation for the driver and crew; food; and trucks – often 2 B-doubles to transport a team. Howard estimated that a new team might cost over $5million.

Whilst officially ‘retired’ from supercars, Howard still maintains his love of motor sports and works on cars from time to time.