Drag Illustrated Issue 113, September 2016 | Page 40
Dirt
Two Are Stronger Than One
Hogan and Johnson combine
to put Torrence on top
By Josh Hachat
know it’s such a narrow window of how you can
run one of these cars.”
Surprisingly, it hasn’t come with major changes
and Hogan is the first to admit that, even with
Johnson aboard. There have been improvements
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to the chassis and
tires, but the crew
is experienced and
talented, giving
Hogan a great base
to chase a world
championship.
Hogan also has a
unique perspective of why being
a one-car team has
helped in at least
one regard.
“What I think
we have that works
well is we’re so strict
on our maintenance, as far as the quality of the
parts we have and where we set the tolerance for
a lot of the things so that we generate as much
horsepower as we can for whatever conditions
we’re in,” he said. “Some of it is just really small
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40 | D r a g
I l l u s t r a t e d | DragIllustrated.com
Issue 113
PHOTOS: MARK J. REBILAS, NHRA / NATIONAL DRAGSTER
R
ichard Hogan knew the reality
of the situation even if others did not
want to believe it. So while many spent
time questioning whether or not Hogan, the crew chief for Steve Torrence’s Top Fuel
dragster, and legendary renowned tuner Alan
Johnson, brought on as a consultant for Torrence’s
and Brittany Force’s teams, could work together,
Hogan already knew the answer. Some of it came
from previous experience—Hogan worked for
Alan Johnson Racing in the late 1990s through
the early 2000s—some of it was knowing their
personalities, and the last portion was an equal
drive to see Torrence thrive during the 2016
NHRA season.
“If you asked anybody in the sport, so to speak,
different crew chiefs and owners, I don’t think
anybody really thought it would work,” Hogan said. “I didn’t
think there would
be a problem, but
I might have been
the only person who
believed that—and
maybe AJ.
“I’ve known AJ
for a long time
and I’ ve been
around him a lot
so I wasn’t concerned, but I don’t
think anybody else
thought it would
come out like it
has. AJ knows how
I do my own thing
and he knows how
to work around that, and I’ve known him long
enough to know some of his ways of how he looks
at things. Whether we agree or not, it isn’t big
deal to either one of us. There’s definitely not any
head butting between the two of us because we