The RoundHouse | 6/5/2019 2:14:00 PM

 
When Ben Johnson ends his Wichita State track and field career, he will live in a camper for the next two years. He figures it will save him money and time as he starts his job with Textron Aviation's Leadership Development Program.
 
"To be kind, he's thrifty," said Drew Johnson, his father. "He got to looking at what rent costs are around the country and said 'Well, I'll just buy a camper.' I tried to talk him out of it, just because I thought that was one more thing to worry about."
 
Not long after that conversation, Ben Johnson sent his dad a picture of the 28-foot, white Gulfstream camper that will he haul from city to city for his six-month rotations around the Textron world. He is rebuilding the engine and transmission for his 1972 Suburban to haul the camper.
 
"In typical Ben fashion, the next thing I know I get a text message and it's got the camper that he just bought," Drew Johnson said. "He's certainly not afraid to try anything."
 
Especially when it involves tearing down and rebuilding Chevrolet trucks.
 
"I love 1967 to 1972 Chevy pickup trucks," he said. "I've had tons of them in my day, probably close to 10. The one that I'm driving, which is the first truck I ever had, is the one my grandpa and I rebuilt when I was a freshman in high school. I could talk about that truck, literally, for an entire day."
 
That fearless attitude served Ben Johnson well over his career at Wichita State. He arrived as a walk-on who didn't get serious about track until his junior year at Tonganoxie High School. He picked up the multi-events at Wichita State and competes in the NCAA Outdoor Championships in the decathlon on Wednesday and Thursday in Austin, Texas.
 
Johnson ranks No. 17 in the 24-person field entering the competition. He qualified with a personal-best score of 7,413 points to win the American Athletic Conference championship and ranks fourth at Wichita State. Johnson, a senior, finished 12^th(second-team All-American) in the heptathlon at the NCAA Indoor Championships with 5,545 points in March.
 
"I'm just really excited to get a chance to compete again," he said. "I was going through our conference meet a couple of weeks ago with a lot of events that didn't go my way and I was sitting there thinking that if this was my last decathlon ever I'm going to be disappointed because there was a lot of things that I could improve my score on. Hopefully, this outdoor season I can battle for a chance to finish with first-team All-America honors."
 
Johnson grew more and more passionate about the multi-events at Wichita State as he began performing well and saw the chance for national success. He credits former Shocker Hunter Veith – school record-holder in the heptathlon and decathlon – with pushing him during summer training.
 
"We trained for hours every single day and we didn't skip a single day," Johnson said. "That really taught me how to work hard. I came back that next fall a different person and that taught me summer workouts is where you make your biggest gains."
 
Johnson's passion for building and rebuilding started at a much younger age. He was the kind of child who grabbed a screwdriver and took kitchen cabinet doors off their hinges. 
 
Family members fed his interest and got him hooked on Chevrolets.
 
"Last fall, I got this Suburban from my great uncle and drove to Washington and back in like four days and picked up a whole new body for it," he said. "I did the body swap in my parents' yard and redid and painted the entire thing."
 
When he isn't building engines, studying or practicing for the decathlon, he is often on the Internet searching for 1967-72 Chevrolets in need of a new home. 
 
"It's the best-looking body style in the history of Chevrolet," he said. "It's a combination of sleek and beefy. They just look tough. And they're still simple. They perform well, but they're still simple enough to work on."
 
Johnson graduated in May with a major in mechanical engineering and interned at Cessna throughout college. In August, he drives Thief River Falls, Minn., to start for Textron. He rented a camper space close enough to walk or bike to work. 
 
He figured living in a camper is simpler than finding six-month leases in different cities. He figures it will cost $2,500 for six months to park the camper, allowing him to pocket almost half of Textron's $4,000 housing allowance. 
 
"I know a lot of people that spend close to $800 a month on rent during the program," he said. "I don't mind living out of a trailer. It's got everything I need. It's got a bedroom, it's got a full-size refrigerator and a kitchen and a bathroom."
 
Paul Suellentrop covers Wichita State Athletics and the American Athletic Conference for university Strategic Communications. Contact him at paul.suellentrop@wichita.edu.