Mike Salinas’ NHRA Top Fuel Success Is No Overnight Sensation

• Mike Salinas is applying lessons he learned from drag racing’s tuning master, Alan Johnson

• Salinas, 60, is second in the NHRA Top Fuel points standings, trailing only Brittany Force. Both have two wins in the NHRA's first six events of 2022.

• New crew chief Rob Flynn is ‘sweet man’ – but ‘deadly,’ Scrappers Racing boss insists.

True to his “We build champions” motto, NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series Top Fuel tuner Alan Johnson has 12 titles with six drivers (Gary Scelzi, Tony Schumacher, Larry Dixon, Shawn Langdon, Del Worsham, and Brittany Force).

Johnson's current assignment is with Doug Kalitta, but for three of the past four seasons he oversaw Mike Salinas’ Scrappers Racing operations. (Salinas opted out of the 2020 season.) Then he left at the end of the 2021 campaign.

And Salinas is winning.

That’s not a derogatory remark about Johnson. It’s exactly the opposite. It’s a compliment.

Salinas, the two-time and most recent winner on the Camping World Drag Racing Series, said so following his victory Sunday at the Circle K Four-Wide Nationals at Charlotte.

“He taught all of us,” Salinas said of Johnson. That includes reigning champion Steve Torrence and points leader Brittany Force. “Indirectly, Alan is racing himself. It’s a great thing. What he does bring to the table is a discipline that most people don’t have in racing. He’s such an amazing man. He really is.”

But, as Salinas noted, “The data is mine,” and the man with whom Johnson swapped jobs in the offseason knows just what to do with it.

“Now, flip side to Rob Flynn . . . When I first needed a crew chief, I thought he was the most underrated, unappreciated crew chief out here, probably the most brilliant. He takes everybody else’s stuff and manipulates it and makes it ours. We have a better car that is going down the track almost every run and not hurting parts,” Salinas said. “If you see us spin tires, it’s because we’re trying something new and we know we’re (safely) in the show.”

He said that after the winners circle photo session, while he was visiting with the media, Flynn probably was poring over data for the May 13-15 Virginia Nationals at Virginia Motorsports Park, south of Richmond.

“I’ll bet after we finish celebrating, Rob will go in the trailer and he’ll sit there for another couple of hours, looking at Virginia (data) already. The man lives in that trailer, on the computer,” Salinas said. “So mild-mannered, sweet man, gentle . . . he’s deadly. The guy’s deadly. Keep an eye on him. I’m lucky that I get to drive the car he’s tuning.”

Salinas wasn’t making a “Rob Flynn is better than Alan Johnson” kind of statement. But it was clear that all the naysayers who thought Salinas’ team would fizzle when Johnson left were wrong. Whatever life throws at Salinas, he has carved his own path through it or around it.