Janson was a competitor in
Australian Touring Car Racing. He made 19
Bathurst 1000 starts between 1973 and 1992 primarily in
Holden Toranas and
Commodores, finishing second in
1979 and
1980 and third in
1977 (all of his podium finishes were with
Larry Perkins who would go on to be a six time winner of the race). With the end of the
Group C era in
1984, Janson closed his team but continued to drive for other teams including joining
Sydney based privateer Garry Wilmington in a
V12 Jaguar XJS in the
1985 and
1986 races. He later scored a class win and fourth outright driving a
BMW M3 with fellow Kiwi Trevor Crowe at the
1988 Bathurst 1000, though that class win wasn't without its trials. Unlike the ultra-fit triathlete Crowe, Janson wasn't all that into exercise, not to mention that he regularly smoked cigars, and unlike the lazy V8's and V12's he had raced previously at Bathurst, the 4-cylinder BMW required the driver to be a lot more on the ball physically and mentally. At one point late in the race before his minimum drive time was over, an exhausted Janson drove into the pits and "fell out of the car", though he was coaxed back out onto the track by the team (their position in class was safe) for a few more (slow) laps before handing over to Crowe to finish the race. Janson's last appearance at
Bathurst was in
1992 where he and Bob Jones finished 20th in a
Holden VL Commodore SS Group A SV. Always a colourful character who gave his sponsors a plug at every opportunity, especially when being interviewed in the pits, Janson briefly changed his name by
deed poll in the mid-1970s to
NGK Janson to circumvent a CAMS (
Confederation of Australian Motor Sport) rule that only allowed a driver's name to be carried above the window line. His former co-driver Larry Perkins also told that one year on a parade lap at Bathurst, Janson continually pulled the car off onto the grass in order to throw
Cherry Ripe chocolate bars out to the crowd (his major sponsor being
Cadbury Schweppes). ==Career results==