Johnny Gibson could’ve never imagined the future that awaited when his first World of Outlaws Sprint Car race left him in awe.
The Pennsylvanian’s racing connection was rooted in Late Models. A few United Racing Club (URC) events introduced Gibson to Sprint Cars, but it wasn’t until a 1981 night at Lernerville Speedway that this race fan’s life changed. Ted Johnson’s band of travelers rolled through the Sarver, PA track during their fourth season, and Gibson knew he was witnessing something special.
“Going to see the World of Outlaws, that was an entirely different level,” Gibson recalled. “It was like, ‘Oh my, this is crazy. This is what I want to see from now on.’”
Fast forward 45 years, and Gibson’s name is synonymous with the Series. He’s set to begin his 30th consecutive season on the microphone with The Greatest Show on Dirt.
Gibson’s earliest aspirations didn’t include making a living announcing races. He planned to be a musician. Several years were spent playing in bands and bouncing around to whatever day jobs he could find to pay the bills. While music may have been his desired professional path at the time, the racing fandom never dimmed.
“If there was a weekend where the band wasn’t playing, I was off at a race,” Gibson said. “I can remember, probably in 1987, being at rehearsal with the band in Pittsburgh, and rehearsal ended up finishing up about 9:30 or 10:00, and jumping in my car and hauling ass to Sharon Speedway and got there for like the final 20 laps of the Ohio Speedweek feature. I drove like an hour and a half just for like 20 laps of a feature.”
The door to working with the World of Outlaws opened in 1994 when Gibson helped sell programs thanks to Kevin Eckert introducing him to Bill Woodside the year prior. That eventually progressed into becoming the primary program seller. Those early days were far from luxurious, but Gibson didn’t mind. Being on the road with the World of Outlaws was more than enough.
“They asked me if I wanted to take over the program gig full-time, and so I immediately said yes,” Gibson said. “So, the remainder of 1995 and all of 1996 I was basically on the road. I was an independent contractor. I paid all my own expenses, used my own vehicle, all that sort of stuff. So, it was a lot of nights sleeping in my van or staying with friends or crashing on couches just to be able to stay on the road and be able to see the races every night.”
The 1996 season also knocked over the first domino in Gibson’s route to cementing himself as the voice of the World of Outlaws. The tour stopped at California’s Kings Speedway in the fall, and track announcer Bobby Gerould invited Gibson to the booth for an interview about his job. The time came for Heat Races, and Gerould offered him the chance to call one after previous conversations revealed Gibson’s enthusiasm for the sport. Gibson stepped up to the plate and knocked it out of the park.
“Johnny had a notebook, and I was talking to him about his notes and that kind of stuff,” Gerould said. “He’s at all the races. He’d watched all the Outlaw races, and he’s got this notebook full of stats and numbers and stuff. He was just super dialed in to the whole deal. I remember asking him that night, early out by where they sell the food and stuff down there, ‘Have you ever thought about announcing?’ I don’t even remember what his answer was, but the bottom line was I was like, ‘Come up to the booth tonight and call a Heat Race if you want to, because I know you know these guys, and you know the stuff.’ So, he did come up to the booth, and it might’ve been the third Heat or something, and I said, ‘OK, here you go.’”
Joining Gerould and Gibson in the booth that night was Series Director Carlton Reimers, who quickly took note of Gibson’s talent.
“When he picked that mic up, it was just natural,” Reimers said. “And he just rattled off a Heat Race there like he’d been announcing and calling races his whole life.”
Something the World of Outlaws lacked to that point was their own announcer. Reimers wanted a voice that fans could associate with the growing Series. A passionate individual whose name crowds would recognize as much as they did Kinser or Swindell. So, he chatted with Ted Johnson about what he’d just witnessed during the Heat Race, and Gibson traded the programs for a microphone in 1997.
“I had been wanting for us to get our own full-time announcer for some time,” Reimers explained. “And I thought, ‘Boy, this is just a natural fit here. I’ve got to tell Ted about this and see what we can do.’ And of course, the rest is history.”
Over the next several years, Gibson and the World of Outlaws became inseparable. His voice attached to so many iconic moments. Fans echoing his famed Four-Wide Salute call in grandstands across the country. He didn’t simply travel with and call races for The Greatest Show on Dirt. He became part of The Greatest Show on Dirt. His contributions became so valued that Gibson was inducted into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame in 2022.
But Gibson remains humble despite growing into an iconic piece of the sport’s history. To him, he’s simply doing his job with the care and commitment that the best Sprint Car drivers in the world deserve and hoping to potentially help introduce others to the sport he cherishes.
“To this day, I don’t really think I’m that big of a part of the show,” Gibson said. “My job is to basically communicate and inform the fans who are watching what is the show, the racing itself. It’s still strange to me when people come up and ask for an autograph… But probably the coolest part is I help people maybe discover or learn more about the Series that is absolutely The Greatest Show on Dirt. It’s not just a marketing phrase. To me, that’s exactly what’s going on.”
Gibson may opt for humility, but the mark he’s made can’t be overstated.
“You just realize how important he is and the impact he’s had,” Reimers said. “Sometimes you see little kids come up and they’re rattling off Johnny’s call for the Four-Wide just like he does. They may not even know who Johnny Gibson is, but they know that voice, and they know the calls he makes.”
The dedication displayed by Gibson has led to some remarkable milestones. Not only will 2026 mark his 30th consecutive season calling World of Outlaws events, but it will also continue his streak of 2,412 straight races announced for The Greatest Show on Dirt. His list of tracks visited stands at a whopping 408 and counting.
The World of Outlaws may be his primary focus, but Gibson’s love for dirt extends to all corners of the sport. He’s called the Chili Bowl Nationals, including one trip where his devotion was on full display as he found himself working alongside Bobby Gerould again.
“Johnny wasn’t feeling good the night before one of those Chili Bowls,” Gerould explained. “We were hanging out, and he was like, ‘Yeah, man, I don’t feel good.’ He had a runny nose, a little cough, and his ears were messed up. He just really wasn’t feeling good, and I was thinking, ‘If I have to try to do this tomorrow by myself, that’s not going to work. What are we going to do? We might have to recruit someone to come in. It won’t be Johnny because he’s such a play-by-play guy, but it’s going to have to be someone who can give us a little color or whatever.’
“Well, Johnny, the next day, before we were supposed to start the Chili Bowl got up early, went to a clinic somewhere in Tulsa, and they diagnosed him with walking pneumonia. But when it was time to lace them up and put on the headset, there he was.”
Johnny Gibson is unquestionably a legend of dirt racing. The story of the World of Outlaws is not as powerful without him and his extraordinary care for the sport.
But he’ll never view himself that way. For Gibson, he’s still that same person that was mesmerized by the World of Outlaws when he first saw them. A race fan who’s found some good fortune along the journey.
“I just can’t wrap my head around it,” Gibson said of his 30th season. “There is no way that Johnny Gibson in 1997 would’ve imagined 30 years later still doing this. I thought, ‘OK, this might be cool for the next couple years.’ But I just never imagined 30 years later I’d still be doing this. I say this in every interview that I’ve ever done with anyone, but it’s just so true. There’s no getting away from it. I am the luckiest Sprint Car fan in the world. I get to watch the World of Outlaws every night, and I get to talk about it.”
Gibson begins his 30th season calling races for the World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Cars at Volusia Speedway Park’s Federated Auto Parts DIRTcar Nationals on Feb. 4-7.
Where can you get tickets to see the World of Outlaws in 2026? Click to see the full schedule.
Where can you watch every World of Outlaws race? Live on DIRTVision.