Who Is Dick Johnson?
Richard Johnson is an Australian touring car driver who won five Australian Touring Car Championships and three Bathurst 1000s. He was born in Brisbane on 26 April 1945, raced his first car at Lakeside in 1964, and spent his first twelve seasons in Holdens before the switch to Ford that defined him.
For a decade he was a fast privateer and nothing more. He drove for Bryan Byrt Ford through the late 1970s, and in 1980 arrived at Bathurst on the front row with everything he owned in the car. On lap 17, while leading, he hit a rock that had come down onto the track above the Cutting and crashed into the wall.
What happened next is the reason the team exists. Channel Seven’s switchboards were flooded with viewers pledging money; A$72,000 was raised, Ford Australia’s Edsel Ford II matched it, and Johnson built a new Falcon with the A$144,000. In 1981 he won the Australian Touring Car Championship and the Bathurst 1000 in it.
Four more titles followed — 1982 and 1984 in Falcons, 1988 and 1989 in the Ford Sierra RS500 — along with Bathurst wins in 1989 and 1994, both with John Bowe. He retired from driving in 1999, having shared his last Bathurst with his son Steven, and still runs Dick Johnson Racing.
