From Salvation To Domination

Dick Johnson Racing stood on the brink of extinction entering 2013, facing mounting debts, a lack of sponsors and poor on-track results. Six years on, it entered 2019 as the defending champions and has confirmed its place as the current powerhouse in Supercars. This is the latest remarkable comeback story from a team that built its legend on fighting back from adversity.

- Adrian Musolino

The legend of Dick Johnson and Dick Johnson Racing/ DJR Team Penske was born with the championship and Bathurst double in 1981, a year after the devastation of crashing out of Bathurst after hitting a rock while leading. It wouldn’t be the last adversity they faced, with even more remarkable and complex fightbacks over the coming years.

DJR Team Penske now stands on the brink of a cord-breaking championship win in 2019. The team ill become the most successful in terms of drivers’ ampionships won, moving to nine, one ahead of current rival Triple Eight Race Engineering. Also, in the process, it will become the first team to win championships with three different car models – the Falcon, Sierra and Mustang.

It’s remarkable to think, then, that Johnson’s team was almost lost to Supercars just six years ago, the trough of a 10-year period in which it went from champions to also-rans and near financial collapse to champions again and the current powerhouse outfit.

Dick Johnson Racing’s championship win with James Courtney in 2010 masked the trouble the team was in following a few bleak years. The collapse of 2005 title sponsor Westpoint and the failure of Johnson’s FirstRock Mortgage Centre and V8 Telecom businesses put the team’s budget under great strain, with its impact still felt despite Jim Beam’s backing leading into the championship-winning season.