HOF nominee wasn't that interested in being a driver (NASCAR.com)
August 28, 2009
Tom Wolfe called him "The Last American Hero." Federal authorities put him behind bars for 11 months for running moonshine from his rural western North Carolina roots. Fellow drivers knew of his tremendous will to win, which resulted in 50 Cup victories, including the 1960 Daytona 500, a race in which he pioneered the art of superspeedway drafting. As a car owner for Cale Yarborough and Darrell Waltrip, he was responsible for six NASCAR championships. Junior Johnson—bootlegger, racer, owner, businessman—is as amazing a character as there is in NASCAR's storied history. Starting in his early teens, Junior retired from the cockpit by the time he was 35.
Q: How did you get your start in racing?
Johnson: When I was a young boy, 15 years old, they had a bootlegger's race at North Wilkesboro. The reason they had that, the cars they were running—they were called Grand Nationals at the time—they would come and qualify at 1 o'clock and start the race at 4, so they had two hours in there to find some entertainment for the fans. The fans would get restless in the grandstands and they were trying to figure out something to entertain them up to the time the race started.
Junior Johnson won 50 races a … NASCAR.com – Aug 28, 12:00 pm EDT Junior Johnson won 50 races a … NASCAR.com – Aug 28, 12:00 pm EDT YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_last_index = 1; YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_lazy_images = [http://d.yimg.com/a/p/sp/turner/57/fullj.105c18c59952bda5eb419839e490dc2c/1.on.1.jjohnson.hof200908280.jpg?x=180&y=200&xc=129&yc=1&wc=184&hc=204&q=70&sig=KxEdvG4rIlyMgK9KKbVbfg--]; YAHOO.util.Event.addListener(window,load,YAHOO.Sports.articleLazyLoadCarousel.init); 1 of 2 NASCAR Gallery function prev_photo() { if (YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_current_index > 0) { goto_photo(YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_current_index – 1); } else { goto_photo(YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_last_index); }}function next_photo() { if (YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_current_index 0) { YAHOO.util.Dom.addClass(article_carousel_prev, prev); YAHOO.util.Dom.removeClass(article_carousel_prev, prev_disabled); } else { YAHOO.util.Dom.addClass(article_carousel_prev, prev_disabled); YAHOO.util.Dom.removeClass(article_carousel_prev, prev); } if (YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_current_index < YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_last_index) { YAHOO.util.Dom.addClass(article_carousel_next, next); YAHOO.util.Dom.removeClass(article_carousel_next, next_disabled); } else { YAHOO.util.Dom.addClass(article_carousel_next, next_disabled); YAHOO.util.Dom.removeClass(article_carousel_next, next); }*/}function goto_photo(p) { if (YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_photos) { for(i = 0; i < YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_photos.length; i++) { if (i == p) { YAHOO.util.Dom.setStyle(YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_photos[i], display, ); } else { YAHOO.util.Dom.setStyle(YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_photos[i], display, none); } } if (YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_current_page) { YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_current_page.innerHTML =(p + 1); YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_current_index = p; } } update_buttons();}YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_init = function () { YAHOO.util.Event.addListener(article_carousel_prev, click, prev_photo); YAHOO.util.Event.addListener(article_carousel_next, click, next_photo); YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_current_index = 0; YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_current_page = YAHOO.util.Dom.get(carousel_page); YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_photos = YAHOO.util.Dom.getElementsByClassName(item, div, leadphoto); if (YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_photos) { goto_photo(0); }}YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_init();
Enoch Staley was the promoter of the race track and his whole family was in the bootlegging business, just sort of like my family was. His brother, Gwyn, was in it, like my brother was. They had all these moonshiners with these fast cars and they'd bring them in and let the moonshiners drive them, and they'd have a match race between all of them. Well, my brother was a moonshiner, hauled whiskey and made whiskey and all that stuff. I was used to driving real fast on all of the dirt roads around there. So he wanted to run his car in that race, and I lived about two miles from the race track. And I was planting corn for my dad down in the fields and he came and wanted me to drive his car in the race up there.
I told him, "Give me a chance to get my shoes and I'll go with you." So I went up to the house and got my shoes, and we went off to the track at North Wilkesboro. Of course, we didn't have seatbelts or nothing like that then. They tied us in the seat with a rope. They put us all out there and started us up. None of us really knew what racing was all about. We were just racing with each other. Gwyn Staley was leading the race and I was trying to pass him, got an opportunity to get underneath on him, and there was a slower car down there. He pulled down and I had to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting him, and he won the race and I ran second.
That's how I was introduced to the racing, to start with. And I just kept messing with it more as time went on, driving and running where I could as I got a little older.
Q: Tom Wolfe wrote a famous magazine article about you, calling you "The Last American Hero." Did you find that to be a help or hindrance to your career?
Johnson: A lot of people have their opinions. I don't think you can say a race driver could be classified as a hero. To me, a hero is somebody who saves somebody's life or things of that nature. I was a fearless type. I was just a kid that did not fear anything.
Q: You retired as a driver at the peak of your career. Why did you decide to get out?
Johnson: Well, I drove a race car a little different that everybody else. It was fun for me, and I did it to see if I could beat what they called the best at the track at that time, like Curtis Turner, Buck Baker, Buddy Shuman and those kind of guys. I knew they were good drivers because they were winning races, but I didn't think they were as good a drivers as me and some other people, because we were on highways. We'd go one way or the other. One curve would be to the left, the other to the right. And we had all kind of curves we'd go into that we could handle, rather than just going round and round one race track with two curves in it.
I didn't think they were as good as I was. It was a challenge to see if I could beat them at their own game, is how I got into it to start with. It wasn't like I was gung-ho to be a race driver, because I was hauling whiskey. I didn't have that kind of desire to prove that I could outrun everybody on the race track. I wanted to see if I could.
Q: As a car owner, you had a tremendous roster of talent driving for you. Who stands out from that list?
Johnson: I tried to pick a driver who was somebody who had the nerve and the talent to try and beat anybody who came up against him. And I picked that kind of person 99 percent of the time. Basically, that's why I picked Cale Yarborough. I picked LeeRoy Yarbrough for the same thing. Bobby Allison had the same mentality. He just couldn't stand to be beat. And so was Darrell Waltrip. Charlie Glotzbach. All the guys I had just didn't settle for second place.
Q: What is the biggest change to the sport?
Johnson: I think the car is the biggest change I've seen. The sport has gotten more like baseball or football, as far as the rules are concerned. The cars, there's no real desire to invent something, because if they do, they'll get caught. If they're caught cheating, they're fined and suspended.
That doesn't make a real attractive sport for mechanics and that kind of people. For drivers, it doesn't make that much difference. If they win, they don't care if the car runs good. They don't have any interest in building something new or making something better or anything like that, and that's the part I don't like about it.
Q: If you were to hire one of today's drivers, who would it be?
Johnson: Kyle Busch. I'm not saying that because he's controversial. He's a great race driver. It's just he likes to rub it in on people and they don't like it. I'm not saying he's the best driver out there, but I think he has the most desire. And he fits on my list better than anybody else.
Q: If you could choose the first five members of the NASCAR Hall of Fame, who would you select?
Johnson: The fifth guy's the only person I couldn't choose. I'd choose Bill France first, Bill France Jr. second, Richard Petty third and Dale Earnhardt fourth.
Q: What do you feel will be your legacy in stock-car racing?
Johnson: I gave the sport a lot more than I received from it. I can say that. I see stuff on the cars and stuff that they do today, every bit of it came from stuff we did and I did in my racing operation. It feels good to see people that haven't advanced beyond a lot of things I had on my cars when I quit.
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