Brian Husen, Alan Johnson To Tune Mike Salinas’ Scrappers Dragster

If you’re placing bets on this year’s NHRA Top Fuel championship, you may wise to consider Californian Mike Salinas. 

In one of the worst-kept secrets of the offseason, champion crew chief Brian Husen made public this week in a report on NHRA.com that he has parted ways with John Force Racing — where he tuned Brittany Force to the 2017 Mello Yello Series crown — to turn the screws on the Salinas-owned and driven Scrappers Racing dragster in 2019. Alan Johnson, with whom Husen has worked in tandem for the last decade and a half, will serve as tuning advisor.

“They decided to take a different direction at JFR, which I understand, “Husen shares. “They have to make the decisions that they make, and so the opportunity became available with Mike Salinas to come over here and work. I started talking to Mike and seeing the direction that he wanted to go, a lot of the guys from Brittany’s team showed interest, so we knew we had a good group of people. The best case for us was to stick together and try to build on what we had. We did it a few years ago with Brittany and we were successful doing it that way. It’s not that normal low-key winter for us — we have our plate full with work we’ve got to do.”

In addition to the 2017 title, Husen played a major role in championships in 2011 and 2013 with Del Worsham and Shawn Langdon, respectively. Johnson, for his part, owns 16 NHRA championships as a crew chief, team owner, and advisor. The next line on their impressive resumes could well written by Salinas and his independently-run team in 2019.

“Mike’s a great driver and we have the championship team from Brittany’s team. We have all the right parts, so it’s just going to come down to decision-making on Alan and I’s part and Mike doing a good job driving and all these guys doing a great job like they’ve always done,” Husen adds.

Salinas, who went on the road to campaign the full 24-race tour for the first time a season ago, qualified for the Countdown to the Championship and closed out the year seventh in the standings on the heels of four semifinal appearances and a final round showing at Bristol, along with a season-high number one qualifier award at the prestigious U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis.