About Johan Schwartz

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Johan was born and raised in Denmark.  His passion for all things cars was evident when around 6 he created his own rating system in the Danish Auto Consumer Reports.  As soon at his parents allowed, Johan took to the icy roads, frozen ponds and open fields to learn car control!  On his own, Johan learned how to market himself, wrench and found himself at different Danish racing events.

In a Saab '99 and Saab'96 (one with a Ford V6 3.2 liter engine) Johan raced in the Folkerace series, all sprint races, at rally cross courses.  He also competed in the Danish Championship in a Formula Ford 1600, a PRS chassis.  Then for one of Johan's top 10 racing experiences - Johan competed on Team Scandinavia, driving a Landrover in the 1995 Camel Trophy in England. 

Johan first came the US as an exchange student - staying with a family in Minnesota.  Returning to Denmark for three years, Johan served in the Danish army and completed his first 2 years of college.  Back to the US, Johan attended Flagger College (only 45 minutes to Daytona) and ever the entrepreneur, brought and sold a Danish timing system called UniPro to race teams. 

Johan moved to Boston, MA, getting his MBA from U Mass, working for Fidelity and later Mullen Advertising.  Deciding to trade the rat race for the race track, Johan started Endurance Karting, an arrive and drive karting program with schools, endurance races and corporate events, which traveled to kart tracks on the East coast.  Endurance Karting crew and regular clients became an amazing race track family!  This career shift effort allowed Johan to free up for more time on the big track.  

With wife Karen onboard to help run and develop Endurance Karting, Johan was able to further his time on the big track. To further his precision driving Johan also became a Factory BMW Instructor at the Performance Center in SC.  At this same time Johan competed in his first pro races in Grand Am, driving a Honda Si and Mazda Speed 3.  The opportunity to sell the karting business and focus on his personal racing full time happened in 2013.  More great things were to come that same year!

Johan shattered the Guinness World Drift Record in May 2013 - beating the 6.95 mile continuous drift record with his 51.278 miles continuous drift.  Additionally, Johan raised over $30,000 for charity and gained over 1,000,000 views on YouTube.  Fast forward to 2017 and Johan sets two more Guinness World Records, this time for the longest distance drifted in 8 hours and the longest tandem drift.  Totally cool was the guy hanging out the window of the chase car to refuel Johan mid drift 5 times.  This record has 30,000,000+ social media clicks.

Pro Racing was Johan's focus starting in 2014.  World Challenge, now SRO, was a good path and after driving several races in 2014,  Johan drove the whole 2015 season with TechSport.  It was a stellar year of beating records and winning the TCB championship.  In 2016 and 2017 Johan focused on development on coaching.  Moving to the TC class and racing for Rooster Hall Racing Johan had impressive seasons with 3rd place championship finish in 2018 and the championship in 2019.  For 2020, Johan raced TC for Hard Motorsport.  Leading the championship until at Road America, an unfortunate crashed out caused by another driver ended Johan's championship chances.  None the less, a strong 3rd place finish was still achieved!  Johan was also a top finisher two years in a row for BMW Trophy Cup finishing 2nd and 19th respectively for 2019-2020.

At the root of all of Johan's racing has been his strength to understand the technical aspects of racing to not just put down fast and consistent lap times,  but racing two sometimes three different car platforms in the same race - being in the top times for those classes, but the ability to translate what he is doing to his clients so to further their driving development.  

Johan is hired to both race with clients as well as coach clients.  Johan likes to combine data and visual coaching for his clients and adapts to the responsiveness and strengths of the client.  Clients can use their car or have Johan coordinate a car including coming to VIR and renting through Johan's VIR Partner Kaizen AutoSport.  

Contact Johan directly for details, availability and rates.

Johan is Bronze FIA rated pro driver with experience in GT3 and loves both sprint and endurance formats.  Look for Johan this season at the following series SRO, Creventic, WRL, AER, SCCA, Pikes Peak Hill Climb and more to be announced!  Check out 2021 Schedule for details.

In addition to organized race events - Johan also recently developed two programs and has launched the first, Drive A Race Car (rent a BMW M240iR VIR from partner Kaizen AutoSport with the option to add personal coaching from Johan)