Throwback Thursday: Amos Johnson’s Team Highball Mazda RX-7

Team Highball may not have won every race it entered during its 30 years of operation, but team founder Amos Johnson doesn’t recall losing many parties.

The team won 20 races in IMSA GT competition, in addition to 17 victories in the International Sedan series, including the 1973 championship.

Despite the impressive resume driving a variety of machinery, picking a favorite race car was easy for Johnson.

“You know the one I mean, and I still have that car,” Johnson said from his home in the Fort Myers, Florida, area. “As a matter of fact, it’s hiding away in my garage.”

“That car” is the No. 71 Team Highball Mazda RX-7 that Johnson drove to four straight Rolex 24 GTU class victories, from 1985 through 1988.

Japanese legend Yojiro Terada and Jack Dunham joined Johnson in the 1985 victory; Dennis Shaw co-drove in the next three triumphs, joined by Dunham in 1986 and Bob Lazier in both 1987 and 1988.

After finishing third in 1989 with Shaw and Lazier, Johnson was invited by Mazda to join Jim Downing’s GTO effort. While Johnson finished second in GTO in 1990, he leased his trusty No. 71 to Peter Uria, who finished 12th and won GTU with a lineup including current Fifty Plus Racing driver Jim Pace. That was the fifth Rolex 24 victory for the No. 71 car.

“That was the first car ever built to the tube-frame IMSA rules for GTU,” Johnson said. “Before that, you had to start with a complete car, and build a roll cage and everything else inside it. Then IMSA came out with a new rule book that included tube-frame cars for GTU. We got the rule book in November [1984] and we started building that car – with Mazda’s approval – in December. It was basically built during the month of January. Then it won its class Daytona in February of that year – along with 1986, 1987, 1988 and 1990.

“Mazda invited me to drive their four-rotor car at Daytona and Sebring in 1990. Peter Uria found out that I wasn’t going to take the car to Daytona, so he called me and rented the car and some of the crew. He won at Daytona – and then continued to win GTU for four straight years in different RX-7s.”

The No. 71 started life running the Mazda 12A Wankel Rotary engine, and eventually moved to the slightly larger 13B engine. It won its first two Rolex 24s as a first-generation RX-7, with Johnson then upgrading the car in 1987 to the generation two body.

“But it was the same basic car underneath the body shell,” Johnson said of the car, which was white blue with a Team Highball giraffe logo.

ABOVE: Follow-on to Team Highball's RX-7 was this MX-6, seen in 1989 (Marshall Pruett archives)

While Johnson still owns the No. 71 RX-7, he feels a perfect place for the car would be the Mazda collection.

“They’ve got a collection of Mazdas that have done really well over the years. It would be nicely placed with them.”

Johnson ran in the first IMSA sedan race at Talladega in 1969 driving an Opel Kadett. He also won the Touring Under class in the first IMSA GT race, in 1971 at Virginia International Raceway.

Another of his memorable experiences was at Talladega’s opening NASCAR weekend in 1969, when he competed in the NASCAR Grand American (pony car) race on Saturday.

“That was the time when all the big drivers walked out,” Johnson recalled. “Bill France came down to the Grand American paddock and said, ‘If any of you guys want to run in my race tomorrow, bring your cars down to the garage area.’ That was the biggest offer I ever had.”

Johnson ran the 500 miles in the inaugural Talladega 500 in NASCAR’s premier division (now Sprint Cup), finishing 13th in the No. 1 Chevrolet.

Johnson ran in his last of 20 Rolex 24s in 1996. He served as IMSA’s competition and technical director after hanging up his helmet, working on the rules for the World Sports Car class. He is now retired with his wife Bunny. He’s kept busy working with the Coast Guard Auxiliary for 20 years, and has also worked with FEMA for the past four years as a disaster specialist. He’s also busy as a volunteer with the Lee County Sheriff’s Department. His duties including training deputies “how to pit the bad guys.”

Source:IMSA