Throughout his Hall of Fame career, Warren Johnson has been one of the
leading innovators in the sport of drag racing.
When not behind the
wheel of his GM Performance Parts Pontiac GXP, he can be found deep in
his research & development work, searching for ways to improve his
team’s performance. It is a long and labor-intensive process,
involving hours of experimentation, the results of which are not always
readily apparent to others.
However, as the POWERade Drag Racing Series heads to the Lone Star
State for this weekend’s O’Reilly Fall nationals, Johnson wanted to
acknowledge the significant contribution made by someone else, namely
Texas Motorplex owner Billy Meyer, who 22 years ago introduced the
sport to the all-concrete racing surface.
“What is often overlooked when discussing racetracks is how Billy Meyer
was essentially a visionary, building the first concrete racing
surface, which still stands today and on which we’ll race our GM
Performance Parts GXP this weekend,” said Johnson. “At the time, I
remember he was roundly chastised for doing it, but today a concrete
track is the direction many of the newer tracks are taking, including
the state-of-the-art facility we just left in North Carolina.