We've all heard this old axiom at least once: Anyone can get in and drive. And while that may be true in some motorsports disciplines, it's also true that merely competing is one thing, winning is quite another.

Truer than that, however, is that the best drivers in the world–NASCAR Sprint Cup Champion Jimmie Johnson, multi-time F1 World Champion Michael Schumacher, or SCORE Champions Mark Post and Rob MacCachren–have no hope of winning if their equipment fails to carry them to the finish line. That's why, for every driver in the limelight, there's an army of talented mechanics and fabricators behind the scenes, each man or woman playing a vital role in providing that driver with the fastest, best-handling, most reliable racing vehicle possible.

There are already a million racing schools where drivers can learn the nuances of handling a hot rod around an oval, road course, down a dragstrip and, yes, even out in the desert. But shift the focus toward racing-oriented welding and fabrication schools, and the field narrows considerably. For the past two years, the Fab School, based in Riverside, California, has been one of the leaders in this field.

THE PROFESSOR

With the creation of the Fab School, founder Troy Johnson is doing his part to produce a new generation of capable fabricators to serve the racing industry and other engineering fields as well. Some Fab School graduates have landed jobs in noted firms, from Wicked Sand Toys to aircraft engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney.

A 20-year-veteran fabricator in the off-road racing scene, Troy Johnson first turned toward welding and fabrication in the off-road industry while he was still in high school. "A good friend of mine had raced in Baja on bikes, and he had some friends, Mancha Racing, who had a Class 8 truck," Johnson recalls. "They invited me over to check it out. They ended up hiring me, and it was just a good time."

Racing provided an exciting outlet for Johnson's welding and fabrications skills, which he had picked up in agricultural classes in school. "I don't know why I picked a welder up the first time," Johnson says. "I picked it up and just started making sparks. The rest is history."

Dirt Sports Editor in Chief Scott Rousseau tried his hand at MIG welding square tubing with the aid of a Millermatic 212 wire welder. With a user-friendly machine and Johnsons expert instruction, even a ham-fisted novice could produce decent results.

After running his course at Mancha Racing, Johnson moved on to work with Curt LeDuc. When LeDuc signed on to drive Jeeps for Mike Leslie Racing, Johnson also made the move. He later did stints on the factory Dodge team of Walker Evans, the factory Ford team of Leslie and the factory Kia team of Darren Skilton. With a rewarding and lucrative career, you'd think Johnson would be content to continue bouncing from one team to the next. And yet, despite possessing welding and fabrication skills that always kept him in demand, he soon realized there was a major problem in his field–namely that people of his caliber were getting more and more scarce.