Hall of Famer - Johnny Greaves

Since 2005 Monster Energy’s star off-road racer Johnny Greaves has been running the M-claw logo – making him the longest running Monster Energy sponsored athlete in the company’s history. And this November in Las Vegas Greaves will be recognized by the Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame for his unmatched off-road racing efforts spanning four decades.

A former pro motocross racers who tore up the 125 class in the era of Tichenor, Bowen, DeHoop and Turpin, Greaves has won more premier PRO class four wheel short course off-road races than anyone in history. This includes the new top PRO4 racer, eight-time champion CJ Greaves – Johnny’s son.

Tuning up for this weekend’s AMSOIL Championship Off-Road stop at the Dirt City Motorplex in Lena, Wisc., Monster Energy caught up with Johnny Greaves to discuss his appointment to the ORMHOF and some of the more memorable highlights of his racing career.

Monster Energy: Johnny, on behalf of everyone at Monster Energy, congratulations on your appointment to the Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame. That’s quite an honor.

Johnny Greaves: It’s really cool. They (ORMHOF) kind of put a little teaser out there last year. Then you have to provide a whole bunch of information. So my wife's (Kathy) been working hard at getting all that to them. And yeah, they finally decided that I was one of their people I guess.

ME: MonsterEnergy.com readers will think it’s cool that you actually got your start in the off-road world by racing motocross. Talk a bit about motocross, along with some of the high points of your MX career. 

JG: So I ran the East Coast Supercross series, had had some decent luck. I had a little bit of Suzuki support, got a bike and some parts. Always made the mains and pretty good finishes, but never had like any top fives or anything like that. Made the East/West deal in Vegas where they took the top 20 from each region, but I wasn’t able to go because I had to work. Raced against guys like Keith Turpin, Ronnie Tichenor, Todd DeHoop and Keith Bowen. Finished 12th at Daytona (Fla.) one year, then at a couple Nationals I ran in the top ten. So yeah, I had a couple moments of glory, but I was the guy who showed up in a pickup truck and had to be back to work on Monday morning. I didn't really get time to train or practice or do anything, you know.

ME: What was it that led you to switch from dirt bikes to four wheels?

JG: So I went to this event at Crandon, and I didn’t really know anything about Crandon at that point, really. It was like the first or second race where they started doing the short course that used to be called the “Brush Run.” It went through the woods and that, then they brought it out to what’s now Crandon’s actual course, a short course. I’d missed the very first year, but the second year they did it they opened the show with dirt bikes and four wheelers. So I went there because a buddy told me there's gonna be some good money. I was still racing pro (MX/SX), but we were off that weekend and I went there and I put a little tiny sprocket on the rear of my RM250 and we were doing 95 miles an hour on the start straight! They had a couple rolling jumps, you know, and I'd swing out and I tripled them and I was waving at the crowd in the air – which was nothing for me being a supercross guy. So it’s funny. I entered three classes and won all three and Cliff Flannery, who’s the President of Crandon, came up to me and said “I’ll give you a hundred dollars every lap that you do those jumps like that. And I was like ‘I can do this all day long!’ So that was my debut at Crandon. And then my second year there doing that, I’m going to say it was like 1988, ’89, I’m leaving the track with my dirt bike in the back of my Toyota pickup truck and there's an off-road buggy for the sale for sale on the way out of the pit I stopped and traded the guy my dirt bike for his buggy – and I’ve been on four wheels ever since.

ME: During that era, were you involved in anything else growing up in Wisconsin, sports-wise? Or were you always wrenching and tinkering on stuff that ran on gasoline?

JG: Nah, I’m not a stick and ball guy. I can’t run, throw – anything that involves athleticism… unless it’s riding a dirt bike. 

ME: By the early 1990s you were competing in SCORE Off-Road and the then SODA short course off-road series’. Talk about those days, including your impressive 1992 titles in both Class 1-1600 and Class 9 in the SCORE series. Do you ever look back at those Baja days and wonder, as young as you were and being a long way from home, how the heck you pulled that off?

JG: I’d been racing back in the Midwest in the SODA Series and they (SCORE) started doing short course out west and they had what they called their National Championship at the end of the year. I think it was Phoenix International Raceway, and they built a short course track while using some of the oval, with a bunch of jumps and stuff on the infield. So I trailered out there in an old U-Haul van where I could put one car in the back of that and another in an enclosed trailer. Went out there and nobody knew who I was or anything – and we ended up sweeping everything. They even protested me at the end of one race and I still had my restrictor plate on from the SODA Series – and you didn’t even have to run one in SCORE. So the race official showed the guy that protested me and said “You take that out and he’s got another 20 horsepower. You still want to protest?” After that I bought a Toyota mini truck and started racing that class (7s).

ME: That was 1993 when you switched to trucks, and began what would become a long and highly prosperous relationship with Toyota. Talk about how that relationship came about, and how you’ve been able to maintain it for 30-some years.

JG: Started racing in the 7s class and by the second year I was doing really well, winning a bunch of races. So I basically back then we were shooting VHS tapes and I was sending them back to Toyota showing them what was going on back here. They took notice and every year they gave me a little more support. It you know it started just some parts, then it was parts plus motor parts and a little bit of budget. It just trickled down from there and the next thing, around 2000, I found myself with a full Toyota factory program for PRO2. That worked well for when Toyota came out with their first full size two wheel drive Tundra and they wanted to really hit the market with that. Since then I’ve been with the Toyota family longer than anyone – even Ivan Stewart they tell me.

ME: Through much of the 1990s you, along with your teammate and fellow Wisconsinite Jeff Kincaid, competed on the SODA and CORR short course series. Talk about those years with Kincaid, and the importance of that time in growing the sport of short course racing.

JG: So, when we teamed up with Jeff, I mean he was one of my main competitors in that class. He was running his own program and blowing up motors every time, but I saw potential in him. At the time he had the backing of the Forest County Potawatomi and I brought in Toyota and BFGoodrich. We sat down and talked about putting a team together and we ended up dominating the PRO Lite class for multiple years. During that time Marty Reid at ESPN became a huge part of growing the sport of short course, and the sport really started blowing up. Just going wild. I had the opportunity to just keep moving up in classes and Jeff was the kind of guy that preferred stay in in that class he was in. So It worked out good. I moved on and expanded the program, which satisfied the sponsors. Took a chance on that, moving on, and it paid off because today we’re still doing the same thing running the PRO2 and PRO4 trucks.

ME: When you made the jump in the 2000s up to the Big Dawg trucks – the PRO2 and PRO4 classes – another key partner in your race career would come along as you began your relationship with a then young Monster Energy company. As we approach the 20 anniversary of the Greaves Motorsports/Monster Energy partnership, talk about what it’s meant to you over the years.

JG: I came on board with Monster in 2005. We put together a little helmet deal, you know, the hat/can podium deal. We went from that to a deal with the Potawatomi and it was the Monster Energy/Potawatomi Team truck for a little bit. Then as the sport continued to get bigger, gaining a lot more recognition and popularity, Monster wanted a whole lot more because we were expanding and were racing out west and all over this place. So I ended up doing a a full deal with Monster in 2007.

ME: Next year you’ll have been with Monster Energy for 20 years. We can probably go on record as saying you’re the longest-running athlete with Monster Energy.

JG: Yeah, Monster told me at one point it was Tucker Hibbert. But he’s been retired from racing now for some time. So now it’s me, which is pretty cool.

ME: One of your main rivals in short course racing was former multi-time MX/SX champion Rick Johnson, and you guys, pitting Monster Energy vs. Red Bull, went at it pretty hard back in the TORC racing days. Talk a bit about that rivalry and what it meant to the sport of short course racing.

JG: I mean those were those were really great times for the sport of off-road and then to see a legend like Ricky Johnson come into the sport. As a motocross racer, he was one of my heroes, right? Yeah. I was I was actually racing before him and he came along after guys like Jeff Ward, Johnny O’Mara and David Bailey. Gave all those guys headaches. And when he (RJ) comes into the off-road scene he was a PRO2 guy and I went over and talked to him and I was like this this bumbling little fan, right? Two years later and he moves up to PRO4 and now I gotta come to blows with this guy. It was funny… we were able to somewhat maintain our friendship off the track, but when we were on the track it was absolutely gloves! You knew he wanted to win as bad as I did. And that said, I wanted to beat this guy more than anybody because this is a legend, you know, in a sport that I could never be a legend in – motocross. So that's excellent. I wanted to prove my work there. And yeah, we had some epic races at an epic time where TV was just starting to create reality shows, with drama, and that added to our rivalry even more. Pushing and shoving and fighting in the pits – a little bit of everything. But today we still talk all the time, text, and our relationship’s excellent. He’s still one of my heroes whether he knows it or not. 

ME: During that time you also christened the racing career of the current AMSOIL Championship Off-Road #1 racer, your son – Monster Energy’s Colton “CJ” Greaves. A dream for fathers of sons that pack the stands at places like the famed Crandon International Raceway in Wisconsin and northern Michigan’s Bark River Raceway, talk about what it’s meant to you to you – under the Greaves Motorsports awning – to see CJ grow up from the buggy classes to being the multi-time COR PRO4 champion.

JG: Yeah, when CJ came of age to, to move into the pro class, I mean, we knew already through all the testing that he was in these trucks, long before they ever seen him on the track, that he had the capability. I put the time in with him just like any other dad would and he had the talent and he took he took instruction really well and listened. And well beyond what I said. He's one of these kids who paid attention to what was going on the racetrack. Probably more than I did, because he’d come back and tell me everything everybody did wrong in every other race and what he saw and I was like ‘Holy shit. He actually is paying attention.’ So the minute we have the opportunity we put him in the starting gate in a PRO2 truck. His 16th birthday wasn’t until June (you have to be 16 to race a USAC PRO class) and our first race was at the end of May. So we did the opposite of motocross, where you lie in the other direction, and put him down for already being 16 just to get him into that first race.

ME: How’d that end up going?

JG: They never checked and he won his first ever PRO2 race at 15 years old. And then him and I went head-to-head in the Crandon Cup race, and he was out front leading in the PRO2 and I caught him (Johnny was running his PRO4 truck in the same race) on the last lap and we went into the last turn side by side and, you know, I probably had a chance to nudge him out of the way. But I thought ‘You know what? We’re going to go through this turn side by side and cross this finish line like nose to nose’ - and it ended up being the closest Crandon finish ever in history. They couldn't tell who won the race. So, yeah, to do something like that with your son – it’s like it's a dream come true, right? You couldn't script that or plan what just happened that day.

It was one of our great greater moments and we've had a lot of great races, you know, him and I battling through the years. The last few years he's been at the top of the rank in that class. So we don't get to battle quite as much. But I still show him a fender every now and then.

ME: That’s awesome. To date, you’ve got more than 200 short course race victories – including more than 100 in the premier PRO4 class – and more than 25 series titles. You’re currently in 2nd place in the COR PRO4 points chase, 25 back of CJ (345-320). This begs the question… how much longer do you figure you’re going to keep racing?

JG: We'll just see how it goes. Last year, I thought about it a lot. I had a bad crash at the very first race. And it, it was really hard for me to get back and engage… be fast again and aggressive and have what it takes to drive one of these PRO4s. At the end of last year I still didn't have much success we said ‘Well, let’s give it one more year. And I came out this year with just a whole new attitude and you know, it's kind of funny. I took up fishing of all things. I’d fished in my life. So we bought a house in Florida two years ago and I started fishing last winter. You know, it just, it just changed my outlook on things. I’m not a very calm and relaxed person. But now I sit out there all day long and just wait to catch a fish. Everybody on the team said it’s changed me. It’s so interesting, what we call ‘Podium Fishing.’ I get a podium and I get to go fishing again. And this year I find myself just driving the race truck again and just actually doing what I need to do. And so I asked Monster, ‘You know how much longer you want me to do this?’ And, and they said, “We're with you for as long as you want to do it.” So our agreement is, when I don't feel competitive anymore and I'm not getting on the box and I don't feel like it's worth spending your (Monster Energy’s) money, then I'm not going to spend Monster’s money anymore. So, I guess we'll see when that day comes. And that's a good way to end here.

Up next: Greaves is in Lena, Wisc., for the Dirt City Off-Road National at the Dirt City Motorplex, Round 5 of the 2024 AMSOIL Championship Off-Road National Tour.