Johnny Sauter: 'Mess with the bull and you get the horns'

He’s had just about enough of some of the upstarts using the truck tour as a stepping stone to climb the NASCAR ranks with complete disregard for the veterans. 

For Sauter, 39, the tipping point came two weeks ago at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park when 20-year-old Ben Rhodes called the current champion “an old piece of (expletive).” 

That was all the spark Sauter needed to make a gung-ho run for a second title.

“After the race at Canada, when one of those young punks called me an old P.O.S., I was pretty motivated,” Sauter told motorsport.com. “Very motivated, because the next morning I was on the treadmill running as fast as I could, and as hard as I could, lifting weights. My wife (Courtney) asked, ‘What are you doing?’ I replied, ‘Don’t worry about it.’ 

“I’m at a point in my career where — not to sound arrogant or ignorant, but — mess with the bull and you get the horns. If someone wants to go toe-to-toe, I don’t care, let’s go. That’s how I feel. And if Ben Rhodes wants a piece of it, let's go.”

And Sauter wasn’t afraid to use the ‘chrome’ horn last Friday night en route to his second win of the season at Chicagoland Speedway. “I just ran into that (expletive) idiot,” Sauter said over the radio after moving Noah Gragson out of the way. “I did it on purpose.” 

When asked about using the bumper during the race, Sauter replied with a smile, “Which time? You have to be more specific. It’s racing. It’s a contact sport. Sometimes you get motivated by people like that. Not that I need motivation, but it was an exclamation.”

Not surprisingly, when Rhodes was racing Sauter a little too aggressively, his crew chief, Eddie Troconis, came over the radio and warned his driver to “chill out." Rhodes was on the playoff bubble entering Chicagoland and couldn’t afford to pick another fight with Sauter. 

Provoking Sauter is a rookie move. The second-generation racer — and the 10th of 11 children — learned to defend himself at a young age. He watched his father Jim race and win local track championships and two Artgo Challenge titles (1981-1982) while dabbling in NASCAR during his later years. 

Sauter followed in his father's footsteps. In his first full season in ASA, a series which helped launch the careers of Jimmie Johnson, Rusty Wallace and Mark Martin, Sauter, then 22, scored a record 10 wins in 20 starts in 2001. His performance captured the attention of Richard Childress, who put Sauter in a car for five of the final eight races of what is now the Xfinity Series. Sauter finished fifth in his first start. 

Sauter raced against his father and older brothers Jay and Tim in Jim’s final NXS race at the family’s home track — the Milwaukee Mile in 2002. The elder Sauter was 59. Two years later, he made his last NASCAR start in the truck series and finished 13th in the 36-truck field. 

Johnny stayed in what was then the Busch Series for five years--while also racing abbreviated Cup schedules for Childress and James Finch--before aligning with Gene Haas in 2006. He ran a full season of Cup at Haas CNC Racing in 2007 — and part of 2008 before finding a home in trucks the next year.

In nine full truck seasons, Sauter has finished outside of the top five in the standings twice — and never outside of the top 10. He’s currently second in the standings, 15-points behind Christopher Bell.  

Last weekend, Sauter had all the incentive he needed to put an old fashioned butt-whipping on the field at Chicagoland. He finished second in the first stage of the race, fourth in the second segment and beat Chase Briscoe to the line by more than two-seconds for his 15th-career Truck series win. 

“It was a pivotal night for us, obviously, as a company, GMS, ” Sauter said after his second win of the season. “This was a brand new truck that we ran earlier in the year at Iowa, GMS fabrication, all in house stuff. We kind of put it on jack stands until tonight — just to see where we were because we were so happy with it at Iowa.

“The last restart was a pretty good one. I was able to dog the 4 truck (Bell) until he got loose, made a mistake, and I was able to capitalize on it. Proud of everybody at GMS, Chevy, Hendrick (Motorsports) horsepower, it was a good night.”

Crew chief Joe Shear, who led the No. 21 GMS Racing team to its first title last year and has seven of his last 13 seasons in trucks working with Sauter on one team or another, is thrilled to see his driver getting hot with the playoffs starting this weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. 

“This is the time you need to get your momentum going,” Shear said after the win. “You work the whole season to build your inventory — get your best pieces, get your best set-ups and get your momentum going on this mile-and-a-half and into the playoffs.”

Sauter doesn’t believe a clear-cut favorite has emerged for the title. He doesn't want to compare this year’s playoff with the inaugural truck Chase last year, because the top contenders have already faced an elimination-style championship run. 

Although Sauter enjoys the most recent experience of winning the truck title, he doesn’t believe last year’s effort will be good enough over the final seven races.

“I don’t want to compare it to last year,” Sauter said. “Honestly, I feel like this is a totally new deal. We have a tough row to hoe. It’s not going to be easy. Christopher Bell is having a great season. (Matt) Crafton is a veteran — a two-time champion. We have our work cut out for us, but I can’t think of better race tracks coming up for us. We just have to execute, race hard and be smart. 

“You just have to race your heart and soul out. Things are either going to work out or they’re not.”