Courtesy of NASCAR.com

By Raygan Swan, NASCAR.COM

When Johanna Long was a little girl, ballet classes bored her and gymnastics could not hold her attention.

“She would just stand there and pick at her tights and not pay attention to what was going on,” said Haley Long, Johanna’s 21-year-old sister.

And while her sister chose to shop, little Johanna had a different kind of shop in mind.

She wanted to be at her father’s Late Model shop — located in her hometown of Pensacola, Fla. — where for years she begged dad to buy her a go-kart. Johanna’s mom thought it might be a phase and waited for it to pass.

Well, it never did. And evidenced by her Truck Series debut recently at O’Reilly Raceway Park, the phase is just getting started.

“I hope to make it a long time,” said Johanna, whose debut marked her in the record books as the youngest female to make a start in the Truck Series at 18 years old. She qualified 15th, kept the truck in good shape, and brought it home 17th.

Team owner Billy Ballew of Billy Ballew Motorsports, who typically runs the No. 15 Toyota Tundra for developing drivers, said he was more than impressed.

In fact, Ballew said Johanna’s talents and background are significantly more notable than her female predecessors.

“To have an 18-year-old who has never driven a truck before do what she did at ORP, as smooth as she did, was amazing,” Ballew said.

Pending NASCAR approval, Johanna looks to make a second start at Nashville Superspeedway Aug. 7, driving for Ballew once again as part of a multi-race development program.

“For never driving at truck at a difficult track like ORP proves she has a ton of talent and potential. This is all brand new for her but she ran consistent lap times the whole race and if she was in a truck full time I’m confident she could run with the leaders,” said Ballew, who has a history of opening doors for up and coming drivers and has fielded winning trucks for young talent such as  and Aric Almirola. He also helped jumpstart the stock car careers of Brian Ickler and, most recently, Nelson Piquet Jr.

“She is different and I’m not trying to take anything away from previous female racers, but she is,” Ballew said.

Her focus and pathway to racing is comparable to that of female star Danica Patrick. Johanna convinced her father to buy her a go-kart at 8 years old and she never looked back.

“And she’s only out there for one reason and that is to race because she eats, sleeps and breathes it. And she doesn’t care that she’s a girl,” Ballew said. “She wants it really bad and that is a lot of the challenge.”

You become aware of her laser focus when you ask her about life outside the track.

“There’s not much,” Johanna said. “I went to the beach a couple of times with my cousins this summer. Other than that I’ve been racing. Last year I raced 38 separate events. To tell you the truth, I’m still in high school.”

And she doesn’t leave the house for that as last year Johanna left her traditional school to become home schooled. The attendance policy was interfering with her racing.

The decision has proven to be a benefit, Johanna said.

Racing Late Models, she has grabbed some much-deserved attention, namely the time last season she out-qualified Kyle Busch in the highly popular and prestigious Snowball Derby at Five Flags Speedway and won the pole.

The Blizzard Series champion, Johanna broke the track record with a lap of 16.463 seconds.

She won five of the 38 events she ran en route to her championships and competed in two ARCA events last season as well.

“She didn’t follow the leader, that’s for sure,” said her sister Haley. “My mom didn’t think racing was such a good idea but we couldn’t stop her and when we saw her run her first go-kart race and it was like, ‘OK, that’s where she belongs — a race track, not ballet practice.”

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