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Johanna Long to team with female car owner in
2012 Nationwide Series 
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Profile
Hometown: Pensacola, Florida
DOB: 5-26-92
Race Driver/Student
Single
In two career ARCA Racing Series starts in 2009
driving for Venturini Motorsports and Eddie D'Hondt
Motorsports, finished career-best 23rd in
career-first start at Iowa Speedway. Also finished
29th at Rockingham Speedway. Qualified career-best
7th at Iowa. Also qualified 11th at Rockingham.
Veteran of late model racing at Five Flags Speedway
FL, Mobile Int'l Speedway AL, Orange County
Speedway NC, New Smyrna Speedway FL, Nashville
Fairgrounds TN, O'Reilly Raceway Park IN, South
Alabama Speedway and South Georgia Motorsports Park
GA. Also veteran of Legends Cars and Go-Karts. At
17 years old, won the 2009 Blizzard Series late
model touring championship becoming series'
youngest champion and first female champion. At 15,
Long became the youngest, and first female, track
champion at Five Flags Speedway earning the 2008
Pro Late Model title. In addition to earning
victories at Five Flags, she has also won at Mobile
Int'l and South Alabama Speedway. Pole winner at
Five Flags in annual Snowball Derby race in
2009.
Snippets
Johanna started 25th in the race at Phoenix and
came across the finish line in 20th.
* * *
Johanna started 5th in the race at Daytona but
was involved in an accident and finished 32nd.
* * *
Pole winner at Five Flags in annual Snowball
Derby race in 2009.
News
Johanna Long to team with
female car owner in 2012 Nationwide Series
Johanna Long will drive the ML Motorsports No. 70
car in the Nationwide Series for 21 races in 2012,
the team announced.
Long will drive for Mary Louise Miller, one of
the few female team owners in NASCAR. The car will
have sponsorship from Biomet and Foretravel
Motorcoach.
Long, who has competed in 24 races in the
Camping World Truck Series with a best finish of
11th at Texas last June, will compete for
Nationwide rookie of the year. Her 21-race schedule
begins with the season-opening event at
Daytona.
The 19-year-old Long won the 2010 Snowball Derby
Late Model race and has primarily run for her
family-owned team.
“I’m excited to join ML Motorsports,
and I’m honored to have the support of Mary
Louise,” Long said in a news release.
“As a female team owner in NASCAR, Mary Louise
is an inspiration to me. I believe all the pieces
are in place at ML Motorsports to achieve success
in 2012, and I can’t wait to get
started.”
Last year, the ML Motorsports car was primarily
driven by Shelby Howard and David Stremme. The team
has a guaranteed starting spot for the first five
races of 2012 (as long as it attempts each race) as
the car was fielded in partnership with Jay
Robinson Racing in all events last season and
finished 23rd in the owner standings.
“Johanna is a strong driver and a dynamic
young lady, and we are excited to have her on
board,” Miller said. “She has a great
competitive spirit; we believe she has everything
it takes to succeed at the highest levels of NASCAR
competition.”
Source: femaleracingnews.com/circle_track/johanna-long-to-team-with-female-car-owner-in-nationwide-series
Johnna Long Nashville
Race Recap
After an impressive debut in the NASCAR Camping
World Truck Series (NCWTS) two weeks ago, Johanna
Long eagerly awaited her return in Saturday
night’s Nashville 200 at the 1.33-mile
Nashville Superspeedway. Long showed promise
throughout practice and qualifying, and appeared
poised to eclipse her previous finish of
17th-place. Unfortunately, Long didn’t have a
chance to show her true potential. The Pensacola,
Fla., native was spun from behind in the early
goings of the race. Her No. 15 Billy Ballew
Motorsports-fielded Tundra was forced to retire
from the race and she finished in 34th-place.
Three female racers left their
mark on history July 23rd competing together in
NASCAR Camping World Truck Series - Jennifer
Jo Cobb, Michelle Theriault and Johanna "Jo"
Long.
Johanna “Jo” Long, at 18, is the youngest
woman ever to compete in the NASCAR Camping World
Truck Series. Piloting the No. 15 Toyota for Billy
Ballew Motorsports, Jo has been turning heads
winning championships in the Blizzard and Gulf
Coast series as well as pole honors in late model
series prestigious Snow Ball Derby.
As early as the age of five, as she watched her
father race around the Southeast in the old NASCAR
All-pro Division, Jo was driven to become a racecar
driver. While other girls were taking ballet
lessons, the only thing that Jo wanted to do was go
to her father's Late Model shop, located in her
hometown of Pensacola, Florida, where for years she
begged her dad to buy her a go-kart. Jo’s mom
thought it might be a phase and waited for it to
pass…but it never did.
Jo moved successfully from Karts to Legends. At
age 14, she made a name for herself throughout the
southeast in the competitive Pro Late Model
division. Then at 15-years-old, Jo made short track
history becoming the youngest, and first female
track champion in the long history of Five Flags
Speedway to secure the Pro Late Model title.
In the years since, Jo has stayed focus on her
goal to make her mark. After all, she’s the
girl who took the pole position away from Kyle
Busch in the 2009 Snowball Derby! Jo is now
following in Busch’s footsteps, as well as
current Sprint Cup Series drivers Denny Hamlin,
Martin Truex Jr., Paul Menard, Travis Kvapil and
David Stremme, all former drivers for BBM.
“When I turned 18, we wanted to do
something bigger than what we've been doing," Jo
said. "I'm really, really excited. We've been
working real hard to get to this point.
"This is a great opportunity. Billy Ballew
Motorsports has great people and great equipment.
Billy’s guys have been very successful helping
other up and coming drivers transition into
NASCAR."
"I'm just going to go out there and try to earn
respect from all of them," Jo says confidently.
"They're the best of the best, and I want to show
that I belong out there."
Source: www.trackchic.com/wbw/index.asp?articleID=1374
Johanna Long Was No
Ballerina
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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