CONCORD, NC (Feb. 17, 2025) — Kyler Johnson is set to embark on his fourth full-time season with the American Sprint Car Series (ASCS) National Tour in 2025, aiming to turn the experience he’s gained into his first Feature win.
After three straight years of racing against the best the National Tour has to offer, the 21-year-old form Quinter, KS, has garnered five top-five finishes and 26 top 10s. Each year has been a new step, a new lesson. In year four, Johnson wants his next climb to be a win.
“Whenever we decided to join the National Tour, we didn’t really have any idea of how it would go; we didn’t have any expectations,” he said. “But I’d say we’ve definitely met our expectations. Hopefully, this year, we can exceed them as far as getting a win at the national level and seeing where that takes us.”
Johnson started his journey in 360 Sprint Cars at 19 years old, moving up from the 305 Sprint Car ranks. He earned a career-best finish of third at 81 Speedway in 2023 and entered 2024 strong with a fourth-place finish during the second race of the year at Red Dirt Raceway.
His 2024 stats may not indicate growth with fewer top 10s and a lower finish in the final points standings than 2023, but Johnson knows that doesn’t tell the whole story.
“I feel, as a driver, I’ve definitely grown as far as my race craft and all that type of stuff,” he said. “The 305 kind of teaches you some bad habits, so breaking all them habits and becoming just a better driver overall.
“Our team has grown tremendously from where we started when we first joined the National Tour. Our engine program is finally getting built-up, and that’s a big deal when you’re qualifying every week.”
His best teachers have been the veteran drivers around him. During his career-best night at 81 Speedway in 2023, Johnson claimed the pole for the main event and raced against 2023 Series champion Jason Martin and Tour regular Matt Covington before settling for third.
“It’s cool to be competing against the guys you grew up watching,” Johnson said. “You can learn a lot from the veterans. If you have any questions, it’s pretty easy to learn from them just by watching them.
“You go back and watch races, and you see how they get through traffic and when they make what maneuvers. And just simple questions about setups and what they’re thinking. Matt Covington and I — we beat a lot of ideas off each other, and it’s been a huge help to us and our program.”
Johnson took lessons from Martin and Covington, even drivers like Sam Hafertepe Jr., Jason Johnson, Shane Stewart and others, before he even started racing, learning what it took to be an ASCS driver from the grandstands at dirt tracks around the Great Plains. However, his best teachers were the ones he had at home.
Kyler is a third-generation racer, continuing the family tradition that began with his grandfather Jon’s ventures in Sprint Car racing in the 1970s and 1980s. Kyler’s father, Cody “C.J.” Johnson, raced Sprint Cars locally and regionally in the 1990s with the National Championship Racing Association (NCRA). In his 20-plus years on the track, C.J. won six NCRA championships (2000, 2011–2015) and garnered several Feature wins at tracks around Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas.
C.J.’s expertise has been invaluable for Kyler since he started his Sprint Car career in 2019.
“He’s always there to tell me what I should do going into Turn 1 sometimes,” Kyler said about working with his dad. “He puts me in his shoes, I guess, as far as helping me set up and get through the night. He does all the setups on the car. He’s one of the crew chiefs on this team.
“Just having a dad that was out there and ran pretty competitively and won several championships is huge. He knows how to points race, and that’s one of the biggest things — he was really good at finishing nights and putting nights together. Very rarely did he take himself out of a night. That’s one of the biggest things, just keeping yourself in it until the end.”
Johnson begins the next chapter in his development as a regular on the ASCS National Tour with his BK Trucking, Don Ott Racing Engines-powered Maxim Chassis No. 45x car on Saturday, April 12, at Salina Highbanks Speedway in Salina, OK.
Tickets for this event will be on sale at the gate on race day. If you can’t be there to watch, stream every lap live on DIRTVision.
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