Racing lost one of the best dirt-track drivers in the country Saturday night when Sprint Car driver Jason Johnson was killed in a horrific crash at Beaver Dam, Wisconsin.
Johnson, 41, was a five-time American Sprint Car Series (ASCS) 360 champion. He also won 12 career World of Outlaws features including two this season. But Johnson is most known for his thrilling win in the 2016 Knoxville (Iowa) Nationals. The Knoxville Nationals pays $150,000 to win, and there is no bigger dirt track race anywhere than the Knoxville Nationals.
Reactions from around the racing world:
https://nesn.com/2018/06/racing-worl...jason-johnson/
Johnson was just the second World of Outlaws driver killed in the past 20 years. This is almost too hard to believe (and just absolutely awful), but Johnson's wife, Bobbi, was the fiancee of racer Kevin Gobrecht when Gobrecht was killed in a World of Outlaws race at Greenwood (Neb.) in 1999.
Here is a very sad, hard to read, article that talks about Johnson's widow dealing with the death of Gobrecht back in 1999. The couple has planned to marry in November of that year, but Gobrecht was killed on September 24.
https://www.kevingobrecht.com/tribut...eyJackson.html
Everyone who has grown up around racing knows that racing people are the best, The official GoFundMe page that the World of Outlaws set up for Johnson's wife and five-year-old son has received over $37,000 in donations in just 24 hours.
https://www.gofundme.com/JasonJohnsonForever41
Here it is: This is the biggest win of Jason Johnson's career -- the 2016 Knoxville Nationals. Even if you have never seen a Sprint Car race, check out the five-minute highlight video of the race. The closing laps featured Johnson and 10-time Knoxville Nationals winner Donny Schatz exchanging slide jobs while trading the lead back and forth.
This video is definitely worth watching, one of the best dirt-track races a fan could ever see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-nseJnSul0