LEO PARENTE: We're here at Road Atlanta for the Petite Le
Mans, the 10-hour race.
I was thinking about what stories to tell.
Do you ever wonder where these overnight racers come from?
A lot of times you see and wonder, how did
that happen so suddenly?
But it's never that way.
A long time ago in the '90s, I remember a small kid, Patrick
Long, handing me his business card as he was looking to
create a career.
We're going to tell you a similar story, the starting of
that type of career.
Porsche Cup, IMSA GT3 Cup Challenge by Yokohama has a
champion, Sean Johnston.
And as a kid he lived the dream of racing.
He got on the simulators, a little bit of go karting.
13 months ago, he got in the GT3 Cup Porsche car.
Won the championship.
And here at Road Atlanta.
At Petite, he's going to make his professional debut in a
Porsche GT3 GTC car.
I want to tell you that story.
I want you to meet Sean Johnston.
That's today's Shakedown.
Sean Johnston, so even though this is set up,
this is very casual.
We talked yesterday, you've won the Porsche IMSA GT3 Cup
Challenge by Yokohama championship your rookie year.
Now you're here making a debut in ALMS, stepping up.
Everyone's going to think you just came out of GT Academy,
finished second, landed in Porsche, and won everything.
But the story is a lot deeper than that.
How did this whole racing thing start for you?
SEAN JOHNSTON: For me, the passion for racing has come
from a very young age.
I started watching racing on TV with my brother when I was
three years old.
And when I was seven he took me to my first Champ Car race.
And my favorite racing driver, Alex Zanardi, won and did
doughnuts right in front of me.
And that's the moment in my life where I
said, I'm racing cars.
This is what I got to do.
LEO PARENTE: So then what happened?
SEAN JOHNSTON: So then I kept telling my parents.
I came back from that race and said I need to be karting now,
I should've started karting a little while ago.
We need to be karting.
And got older and older.
Being from a small town in northern California called
Mount Shasta, there's no kart track.
So my way to go racing growing up was through
playing Gran Turismo.
And so it wasn't until I was 15 that we found out that
there was a kart track just an hour south.
LEO PARENTE: So you were growing up as a kid, you had
this passion.
But you didn't know there was a track down the street?
SEAN JOHNSTON: We had no clue that there was a track an hour
and 15 minutes away, about.
LEO PARENTE: How many hours did you pound in on video
gaming before that?
SEAN JOHNSTON: Oh, man, I played Gran Turismo like it
was my job.
I spent countless hours on that.
It was ridiculous.
LEO PARENTE: You didn't miss school?
How closed did we get to missing school?
SEAN JOHNSTON: Well see, during the GT Academy
actually, I ditched a lot of class and missed a lot of
homework assignments to play Gran Turismo.
During that GT Academy phase, I was playing probably four,
five, hours a day.
And on the big days I was playing six hours a day.
LEO PARENTE: So I didn't want to throw you off the track.
So you discover the go-kart track.
Did you compete?
SEAN JOHNSTON: I did.
I did a little bit of club-level karting, and just
four-cycle.
I split the cost with my parents because that's what we
could afford to do.
And it was good.
But I never did a full season.
I got taken out in my first regional race and bent the
axle, got completely discouraged, said I don't know
how to fix it.
And so karting was not a really positive
experience for me.
I never won a kart race, in my entire career.
LEO PARENTE: How many years did you do that, again?
SEAN JOHNSTON: I did that on and off for two years.
And then I went off to school to study mechanical
engineering.
Because I figured if I wasn't going to be a racing driver, I
was going to be an engineer for a racing team, at least to
be inside this industry that I love so very much.
LEO PARENTE: Now, you're not the Unser or Andretti family.
So was your family racers, or where'd this come from?
LEO PARENTE: No.
My mom's a social worker for a hospice.
And my dad is an academic counselor at the local
community college.
And they actually both retired this year.
That was exciting for them.
But yeah, no, it really came out of nowhere.
I think it was from watching racing on TV with my brother
that really I got into it.
LEO PARENTE: What was your attitude like?
You seem calm and in control in the race car
now in Porsche Cup.
So what was it like in the kart?
Same guy?
SEAN JOHNSTON: Uh, yeah.
I mean, that's the thing, there's been a great
development, especially this year.
I've had the opportunity to work with some really great
mentors and coaches.
So I'm a much different driver now then I wasn't in karts.
But I mean I was still pretty calm, cool-headed in karts.
But no, it was a great learning experience, though.
LEO PARENTE: OK.
So let me recap.
So we're doing the karting thing.
Didn't work out, low cost, quick but never won, segued
into video games.
Then you heard about GT Academy?
SEAN JOHNSTON: Well, yeah, I've been playing Gran Turismo
since I was very, very young.
I think seven years old actually is when Gran Turismo
one came out.
So yeah, went to school.
And then the October of my sophomore year of school,
that's when I heard that the GT Academy was coming out.
And I said, I'm going to put everything into this.
Because mechanical engineering I had identified at that point
was not really what floats my boat.
Healthy respect for engineering, and I'm grateful
for my background, but engineering is
not at all my passion.
So had this opportunity with Nissan and Sony to do the GT
Academy, and I just put everything into it.
I mean, I'd wake up at 5 in the morning, do homework for
an hour and a half.
And then I'd go start playing Gran Turismo.
And I'd be getting on the wheel at 6:30 and
play up to like 7:00.
And I knew that the bus came at 7:08.
And I'd play Gran Turismo all the way up to 7:05.
Then like, oh, OK, I'm going to go try to get to school.
And I'd run down the road and I'd get to the edge of the
road just to watch the bus go by.
And I said, oh, man, at least I tried to go to school.
And I'd go back and play Gran Turismo for another two hours.
Yeah, I ditched a lot of class to play Gran Turismo.
LEO PARENTE: Now, connect the dots.
Because Tom Driscoll, Driscoll's, has been a patron
to help you get the job done here in Porsche Cup.
How did that all happen?
There's a story behind that one, too.
SEAN JOHNSTON: Yeah, yeah.
I've developed a relationship with one of the members of the
Driscoll family.
And he is above all a very dear friend, and secondary he
has become a really, really great business mentor for me
and has helped establish a
relationship with that business.
And as a business mentor he's been influential to a level
that I can't even begin to describe.
LEO PARENTE: But I'm gonna back you up.
Tell me the story.
You told him about a dream, a passion?
SEAN JOHNSTON: Yeah, no, it was crazy.
We actually met at a community event.
And they said, all right, now stand up and go sit next to
somebody you don't know.
And so I sat down and I turned to my right and I said, hello,
my name is Sean Johnston, and my dream is to become a
professional racing driver.
And at the end of the day, Tom said to me, I want you to keep
in touch with me over the next--
keep me up to date with what you're doing in racing.
So that was back in November of 2009.
And it's really been the last 12 months that we've started
working together.
And as I said, a great friend, great business mentor, but
above all I have probably learned more about life from
this man than anything else this year.
So I'm very, very grateful to have him as a mentor.
LEO PARENTE: So the process has taken you now to debuting
in ALMS with GTC.
SEAN JOHNSTON: Yeah.
LEO PARENTE: So talk to me about the differences.
You run these 45-minute sprint races in Porsche.
SEAN JOHNSTON: Yeah.
LEO PARENTE: So now what are we piling on in terms of new
things to learn?
And how's that kind of working in Sean's head?
SEAN JOHNSTON: Well, there's a number of really big
differences.
The one thing is that my stint length is
IMSA race times 150%.
And then I have to get out and then do it again in another
hour and a half.
That's the one thing is that the time in the car is so much
more than what I'm used to in just the IMSA races.
The other thing is just the traffic.
It's crazy out there.
In my IMSA races, I've actually trained myself to not
look at my mirrors very much.
Because I got the point where I said, I don't want to be
focusing on what's behind me, I want to be doing and
focusing on the only thing that's in my control, which is
driving the car, perfect execution, make that my goal.
So having to spend a large period of time in the car,
every lap, checking the mirrors, the different
mirrors, to see what cars are coming up when.
And you can't just check them once, once you get onto the
front straight.
You need to check them three or four times down the
straight, because the prototypes have such immense
closing speeds that you can be halfway down the straight,
look back, and not see him.
And then there's somebody on you, coming under the brakes
into turn 10.
So that's the big challenge, is the traffic and how to be
efficiently and effectively passed by them.
LEO PARENTE: Doing that, do you feel you're driving the
car more intuitively?
Because now your attention's here, but you're
driving the car quick?
SEAN JOHNSTON: Yeah, it's a completely new
experience for me.
It's a new domain is I'm still getting used to it and getting
into the flow of it.
But yeah, certainly, you're relying more on the car to be
sort of driven by the unconscious, you know, the
small corrections.
I certainly don't have time to be thinking about what's
happening with the car when you're all over the place.
LEO PARENTE: Is this, in effect, they third race car
you've driven?
The Nissans in GT Academy, the Porsche over at Wright, and
this JDX car?
Close?
SEAN JOHNSTON: There's a few more small cars.
I did a three-day school of racing in Jim Russell.
I used the footage from that and got selected as a finalist
in the Ford Racing Mustang challenge driver shootout.
So that I drove a FR500S Mustang.
In my journey towards racing, after my first year of
mechanical engineering, I volunteered as a junior
engineer on a racing team, Performance Tech Motorsports.
I volunteered for a lot of years.
They bought my flights.
But to say thank you, they let me do a club race in
an IMSA Lites car.
So I've driven that.
But in terms of cars that I've actually spent time in, my
Porsche that I was driving in IMSA this year, was the only
car I'd ever driven more than twice.
LEO PARENTE: OK.
So you're a young kid.
But I'm going to say, do young kids come up to you?
And what do they ask you about how to get into racing?
What do you tell them?
SEAN JOHNSTON: Yeah, there have been a few guys who have
come up and asked me.
And the big thing is there's just so much to learn, if
there's ego involved and you think you're entitled to
something, that's the first big warning flag
that you need to check.
This is the hardest thing I've ever done in my entire life.
And there have been some days where it
really, honestly sucked.
LEO PARENTE: Welcome to racing.
SEAN JOHNSTON: That's it.
But before I put together the deal with Driscoll's to be out
here racing, there were some very, very dark and sad days
where I've been working and having this dream, just
working relentlessly, and seeing no return on any of
that investment of your time and energy.
LEO PARENTE: What is it about racing that kept you going?
SEAN JOHNSTON: Well, it's got to be the passion.
It's got to be out there on track.
It's being in the car trying to do the best job that I
possibly can.
For me, it's not even as much about beating other people,
it's about doing the best job that I possibly can, getting
as close to perfection with you and the car.
That's what I love.
And it's certainly the drive that's kept me in it.
LEO PARENTE: OK.
I'm gonna put you on the spot.
Five or 10 years from now, if people save this video from
Shakedown, what are they going to be seeing as Sean Johnston
the driver down the road?
Where do you want to be and what's the plan?
SEAN JOHNSTON: The dream is to be racing LMP1 cars at Le
Mans, and to hopefully win the race.
That's my ultimate dream.
And to not only win it once, but to win
it a number of times.
I know that that dream's through the roof and right now
I'm on step one of my journey, but it's the work ethic that's
gotten me here.
And I think it's the work ethic that's gonna keep me
climbing the ladder, so.
LEO PARENTE: When you're in the race car, do you ever
think about the Gran Turismo days, the video game days?
How does it all work in your head?
SEAN JOHNSTON: There's period of times when I get out of the
car and I reflect back on 12 months ago, I had just
finished up the GT Academy.
And no ride, no sponsor, no nothing.
And then to think now championship, American Le Mans
Series debut.
It blows my mind.
But when I'm in the car, I've got one thing on my mind and
that's driving.
LEO PARENTE: You got a lot of driving this
weekend, so go get them.
SEAN JOHNSTON: That's it.
Thank you very much, Leo.
LEO PARENTE: Thank you.