Johnny Knotts – Nice Guys Finish First
By Jack Webster & Eddie LePine. Photos by Jack Webster
He is a fixture at all IMSA races, constantly patrolling pit lane as he oversees his crew of
IMSA pit officials. He is the most visible of all IMSA representatives, recognized the
world over from his constant appearances on TV broadcasts and interactions with fans
on the countless “grid walks” and pit demonstrations that he has overseen. He is known
and respected by everyone in motorsports – from the drivers to the crew members,
sponsors, journalists and photographers who work with him at every race meeting.
He represents the heart and soul of the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA).
He is Johnny Knotts.
So how did a hardware store owner from Plant City, Florida become the top IMSA pit official
at the very pinnacle of professional motorsports?
It all started with football, when Johnny was coaching in high school. A neighbor took
Johnny to his first sports car race in 1982; the 24 Hours of Daytona. He said he had no
idea what it was all about – but soon became hooked. The following year, he went to the
Twelve Hours of Sebring and as he says, “I haven’t missed one since.”
Family and the hardware store gave Johnny his values, his foundation for how he
approaches life and how he treats people.
“I owe everything, all my success, to my mother. Just her personality, the way she
treated people…like I said, anything you choose to do in life, you can be a success as
long as you are nice.”
That niceness and kindness is instilled into Johnny’s character, part of his DNA.
The hardware store was a family business for 78 years, started by his grandfather who
came from North Carolina in the Mount Airy area (Don Knotts of Mayberry fame was a
cousin). Anyway, grandpa jumped on a train as a hobo, ended up with another cousin in
Plant City and started his hardware store with nothing.
Johnny devoted his life to running the store and eventually bought full ownership from
his brother and worked tirelessly in retail for thirty plus years.
In the early 2000s because of a Christmas gift, a fork in the road appeared and because
of that, Johnny’s life was about to change forever. The gift was a Porsche Driving
Experience and Johnny was lucky enough to have the legendary Hurley Haywood as
his instructor for four days. After that he was hooked and went on to the Panoz Driving
School and did a couple of races with them.
As Johnny says: “Now, this is coming from somebody whose family had no interest in
motorsports, at all…I just kind of felt my passion come alive.”
In the meantime, things were getting tough in the hardware business with the ever-
increasing competition from the big box stores and the pressures of finding the funding
to keep going. Johnny knew he had to make a change.
I hope people come back and say, yeah, great official, knew what
he was doing, fair. Absolutely. But he was nice. That’s the most important thing– Johnny Knotts
“It (the hardware store) just got to the point where it was 7 days a week, 10 hours a day
and I didn’t want to do it anymore. Oh, retail’s brutal.”
So, Johnny sold the hardware store.
As they say, when one door closes, another opens. Johnny was looking for new
challenges, something to reignite his passion for life, something different. As he says, “I
wanted more than just existing. I’d like to kind of equate it to the horse at Disney World
that just goes back and forth its whole life. That’s what I did for 30+ years.”
After his initial forays into the racing world, with the Panoz School under his belt and a
couple of races in his resume, Johnny came to realize he was never going to become a
professional racing driver, as he didn’t have the large checking account needed to move
ahead in the racing world. Then he got a call about a potential pit official job coming
available with the American Le Mans Series. “So, I went to Sebring to interview for the
job. As soon as I walked in, I saw that everybody in the room was from Panoz. And they
are like, what are you here for? I said I’m interviewing for the pit official job. They said,
‘you’re hired’.” That was 2002, the height of the ALMS.
Johnny: “Dick Martin was in charge of the program for a while. Here I come, not
knowing a thing about racing as far as the officiating side, right? But being, you know, a
former coach in high school ball, refereeing some stuff in my youth, I just kind of fell
right into it. And then Dick Martin left and I took over officiating for the ALMS. I can’t
remember the exact year, but I want to say like ’09 or ’10, something like that. Then the
merger happened (2012) and we went with IMSA. This was a new deal. I’ll be perfectly
honest, when we merged, it was tough on everybody. Yeah, because you had two totally
different cultures. After having a year of trying to have three different people manage pit
lane, basically I took over.”
Once Johnny took over pit lane, he began assembling his team of pit officials. Actually,
quite a few of them are female, which is unique in motorsports. They are a great group,
who work well together and are collectively known as “Johnny’s Angels”.
Johnny: “They’re good, you know, and did it just happen? Yes, kind of. Yeah, each and
every one of them I kind of met in a different way. They’re from all over. To be honest,
when I look at bringing people on, sometimes, and I’ll say this, in my opinion, it’s easy to
bring people on who do not have any background in any other motorsports divisions
and I basically train them the IMSA way, you know. The IMSA way is open, we welcome
you, we’re going to accommodate you. And that goes back to John Doonan (IMSA
President), goes back to Scott Atherton (ALMS President). We go through the rule book
and we take each rule, and with each rule I have a story. I kind of like to paint the
picture for each rule.”
That background of coaching has certainly influenced how Johnny deals with not only
the officials under his wing but coaching the competitors as well.
“No matter what you do, and I learned this from retail, and I’ve said this to John
(Doonan) many times, whether it’s racing or anything, the way I look at officiating when we’re out there, yeah, we have a job to do. We are officials, you know, we have to call
penalties, but those are still our customers…and the way we present things is how you
are remembered. I can go up to a team and go – I’m going to call a penalty on you, bye-
bye. No, we don’t do it that way. Mutual respect.”
“And not only do I coach my team, I coach our competitors. So, and I know for a fact,
I’m very, very comfortable with this, saying this – you can see the respect that we have.
The teams know that we’re not out there to catch them, right? We’re out there to do a
job. We are going to coach them in practice. If we see stuff, if they come up, we’re going
to give them the answer. We’re not going to go – that’s your responsibility, no.”
“We’ll help them. Race time’s different, but – and I think over the years that the same
culture has developed, not only pit lane, it’s in tech, it’s in everything. And when you’re
not racing – and people outside of racing don’t understand this – this is family.”
Racing has given Johnny Knotts the rare opportunity to live two lives – the one he had
before racing, and the one he has now in racing. Throughout both of those lives, Johnny
has lived by the standard set by his mother, many years ago. Be nice.
Johnny sums it up the best himself: “You know, down the road when I can’t do this
anymore, I hope people, you know, come back and say, yeah, great official, knew what
he was doing, fair. Absolutely. But he was nice. That’s the most important thing.”
We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
