Hanging it Out: 5 Minutes with Johnny Greaves
by Eric Johnson
 Tomorrow, Johnny Greaves, the pride of Green Bay, Wisconsin and the closed-course off-road racing icon and owner operator of the 4,000-pound, 900-horsepower Monster Energy/Potawatomi/Toyota Pro 4X4 Truck, will leave the town Vince Lombardi made famous, hop on US-41 North and drive pell-mell 118 miles to Crandon International Off-Road Raceway. Why you may ask? For this weekend’s 40th Anniversary BorgWarner World Championship Off-Road Races and rounds 11 and 12 of the TRAXXAS TORC Off-Road Championship Series. Currently third in the 2009 TORC Pro 4X4 point standings behind leader Rick Huseman and second place man Kyle LeDuc, Greaves, the winningest driver in close-course racing history, is also a two-time winner of the hallowed BorgWarner World Championship Cup (2004 and 2007). An “in our time” legend in the Upper Midwest, Greaves – along with the 50,000 fans who will be on-hand to watch him – is hoping for big things in what may likely be the most important single race in American off-road in, well, 40 years.
Johnny, what do you have going this week? If I have it right, you’ve been testing Toyota race engines.
Yeah, actually last week we had three tests scheduled and weather didn’t cooperate, so we got in one solid day and tried a new engine and some different carburetors and just made sure the thing was ready to hit the track. The track was a little muddy and we didn’t get perfect runs, but all in all, everything worked well so I think we’re ready for a big weekend.
Did you test at Crandon International Raceway?
Yeah, it was at Crandon.
1.5 miles in length, personally, do you like racing on the Crandon track?
Yeah, all in all, it’s a great track. It’s like the Indy 500 of off-road. It’s big, it’s fast. It has big sweeping turns and you never lift on it. It’s a different style of off-road racing, you know? Where a lot of track we go to are tighter and have a lot more jumps and moguls and all that, Crandon is just kind of high speed and you let it hang out and the man with the biggest balls usually comes out on top. It’s different, but it’s fun. It definitely has its own flavor.
Do like a wide-open track such as Crandon more than say a typical sinuous, jump-filled TORC circuit?
With my motocross background, I guess you could say I’m more of a supercross-style guy than a big outdoor National guy (Note: Motocross tracks are much bigger and faster than supercross tracks). We always do good at Crandon. We have good solid runs and we’ve won a lot of major titles and won some championships there. We’ve won the BorgWarner and the Governor’s Cup and just about everything there is to win there. I can’t say I don’t like it because we seem to run good there. Like I said, I’m more of a tight, technical guy, but it’s definitely fun to get out there and just let these things eat.
Last June and the Crandon spring races you raced to 4-8 finishes. We’re you still getting your truck dialed-in at that point of the season?
Well, we had a lot of issues going on that weekend that just jumped up and bit us. We still had the automatic transmission in the truck at that time and we just had a few problems that we were finding out about that we needed to dig into a little deeper. We just couldn’t get the truck running right. We had an engine get a little hot after Saturday so we put a backup engine in on Sunday. We just never found our groove that weekend. We were just never completely happy with the whole set-up.
After Crandon you ran to 1-1 finishes at Bark River in Michigan. Obviously, things took a turn for the better for you and the team.
Yeah, we made a lot of changes after Crandon and the crew worked. We out the stick shift back in the truck. I’m a lot happier with that because it’s what I’ve always done. I’ve never driven an automatic truck before and it was just something we were trying. We were trying to make the truck more reliable and the bottom line is that I need to stick with the stick shift and we just need to keep figuring out ways to keep it alive. The stick shift package is just much harder on parts than the automatic because there’s nothing in there absorbs any shock. The automatic converter absorbs a lot of shock in all the moving parts and when you’re talking about four-wheel drive, there’s a lot of moving parts. We came to the conclusion we just have to stick shift. That’s what I’m good at and we proved it at Bark River.
At rounds 9 and 10, also at Bark River, you drove to 7-3 race finishes. More problems and inconsistency?
Round nine, we were running second and on the leader and the engine let go on the last lap. We think a radiator got damaged and the coolant system wasn’t working anymore. We’ve never really had a problem with these Toyota engines. We were where we were supposed to be: Ahead of the point’s leader and closing in on the leader and with one lap to go, the engine let go. And at round 10, I guess I was just a little shaken up from the day before and played it a little more conservative and waited too long to mount a charge to the front. I caught first and second and got on them in the end, but just couldn’t make it happen. I waited too many laps getting there.
But you’re confident with what you have for this weekend?
Oh yeah. The truck is running great right now. We’ve put in some really good laps. Actually, we went up to Crandon after Bark River and I matched my track record that still stands. We’re confident we’re going fast enough to win. It’s just that a lot of luck has to fall in place.
Like any racing, huh?
Yep. You have to make it through the first turn at Crandon. That’s number one.
So the land rush start is pretty hairball?
Oh yeah. I mean I’ve been in just about every form of racing and there’s nothing that even compares to it. From, a dead start, when you hit that first turn, you’re doing anywhere from 90 to 97 miles an hour. You’re going through rolling moguls all the way there and it’s 15 trucks wide and with another group of them right behind you. If one person makes a mistake going through that turn, usually 60% of the field will get involved in the wreck. You’re going to fast. You can’t avoid it. You can’t see. The minute everyone throws their truck sideways it’s just a total whiteout of mud and dirt. You just can’t see. Yeah, it’s a gnarly deal.
What’s your goal at Crandon and who do you expect to have to fight to achieve it?
Well, Crandon is a big motor track and there are a lot of guys putting in big more motors for this weekend. Everybody is going to be strong, but I think the same top three in the TORC championship – myself, my teammate Rick Huseman and Kyle LeDuc – I think that’s where you’re going to see the battle. We’re all pretty much doing the same lap times around that track and we all have a lot of experience around there. It’s just how we come through that first turn. I hope we all get through there clean and we get to give these fans what they paid their money for. It’ll be a great showdown. I’d love to sweep the weekend, but if we can win one of the races and stay ahead of Rick. I guess I want to beat Rick in both races more than anything. Wherever he finishes, I want to finish ahead of him because I have to start getting back in this point’s battle.
You’re a two-time BorgWarner Cup winner. Are those victories two of the highlights of your career?
Oh yeah. I mean it’s a huge race. It’s one of the biggest payouts we race for and it just carries on with you all year long. They run a lot of ads and they make sure that everybody knows you’re the BorgWarner Champions. If you can win that, you’ve definitely etched a notch in the championship stone.
All things considered, is it the race to win?
Yeah, I think so. The championship in the series is obviously the ultimate goal, but beyond that, for a single race, it’s definitely the BorgWarner Cup.
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