[WVGrandma4Kasey]

Junior Johnson remains active as a father, farmer

At 75, NASCAR legend's life far more than a former driver, owner

By David Newton, NASCAR.COM
July 28, 2006
11:41 AM EDT (15:41 GMT)
HAMPTONVILLE, N.C. -- Between the large brick house at the top of the hill and the front gate of this sprawling farm outlined by seemingly endless rows of black fence is a small, white cinderblock building.
Inside are worn couches and chairs no longer good enough for the main house, and a porch swing that hangs from the ceiling.
A small but functional kitchen is in one corner, with farm machinery and assorted tools scattered throughout.
Hanging on the walls are a couple of old car hoods bearing the words "Bud" and "Maxwell House," a subtle reminder that the owner had another life before beginning a new one raising cattle and hay.
This is where Junior Johnson, one of the legendary figures in NASCAR's colorful history, spends most of his time now. He begins most days here at 6 a.m. preparing a full country breakfast for the hired hands and anybody else who wanders into this Yadkin County oasis.
On this day he is enjoying fried fish and peach cobbler with a group of friends that gather at least once a month to relive stories of NASCAR's past and catch up on the gossip of NASCAR's present.
"The house is up there, but this is his home," said Jack Mills, a long-time friend who supplied the catfish and flounder for lunch.
Johnson grew up a few miles away from his 278-acre farm in Wilkes County, where he began running moonshine through the red clay of the Brushy Mountains long before he set foot on the asphalt of nearby North Wilkesboro Speedway.
He moved to this remote spot off Highway 421 -- also known as Junior Johnson Highway -- about 14 years ago to start a new life with his second wife, Lisa.
At 75, he has an 11-year-old daughter (Meredith) and 13-year-old son (Robert Glen Johnson III) that keep him as busy as the country ham and pork skins business he shares with friend Randy Gamble.
While Johnson keeps up with NASCAR and has his opinions on where the sport is headed, he seldom goes to the track outside of Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte and Bristol Motor Speedway, both within two hours of his farm.
"A lot of people get in racing for their whole life," said Johnson, wearing a pair of old jean overalls splattered with white paint. "I was in racing, but it wasn't my whole life."
Not meant to be
Johnson pointed at the old red tractor visible through the back window of his shop as he savored another bite of steaming hot cobbler.

"When I was a kid I dreamed of pitching for the Yankees," he said. "I was on my way, too. Then one day I was acting like a fool on that old tractor and broke the bone in my arm and that was it. I go by and kick the tire every once in a while."

Johnson restored the tractor after he retired from racing. It's a reminder of what could have been and what is.
But baseball's loss was NASCAR's gain. Johnson won 50 Winston Cup races as a driver until 1965 and six championships as an owner with drivers such as Cale Yarborough, Darrell Waltrip and Bill Elliott.
In 1998, three years after he sold his race team to raise a second family and cows, Sports Illustrated named him the greatest NASCAR driver of all time.
"If you took all the history of NASCAR and put the top people up there, he's got to be one of the top two," Mills said. "He's done it as a driver and a car owner. He was a mechanic and a consultant to Ford and Chevrolet. All the people he ever dealt with came to him to find out how to do it.
"They called him the last American Hero. I hope he's not, but he is one."
Master of the setups
All eyes were on Johnson as he recalled the 1994 DieHard 500 at Talladega Superspeedway in which his drivers, Jimmy Spencer and Elliott, finished first and second.
The conversation centered on cheating, something Johnson often was accused of during an era when bending the rules was more the norm than the exception.
In this story the accuser was car owner Robert Yates, whose driver Ernie Irvin finished third.

"After the race Robert came up and told me there's no way I could beat one of his cars unless I cheated," Johnson said with a wry smile. "I told him, 'Hell, I just outrun you with two cars.'"

Johnson laughs when people complain about all the elaborate setups he supposedly slipped past NASCAR. He said Yarborough and Waltrip used more of his setups than he ever did as a driver.
"And it was just a basic setup," he said.
Johnson recalled the time Waltrip asked if he could try running his own setup at Darlington, and how a few laps into the race Waltrip was begging him for help.
"He started yelling loose like he was scared to death," said Johnson, who loves to tell Waltrip stories. "We put 32 rounds of bite in it before we got it right, and he won the race."
Life in perspective
Meredith looked at Johnson with her big eyes, smiled and said, "Dad, do you have the day off on Thursday?"
Johnson, knowing it was her birthday, pretended to play dumb.
"I don't know," he said. "What's going on?"
She leaned in closer and whispered, "It's my birthday. Will you cook me breakfast in bed?"
Johnson chuckled.
"She thinks her birthday is a national holiday," he said.
Perhaps that's because Johnson treats it like one. His family, not racing, is his passion now. He doesn't need fast cars, private planes and trips to Victory Lane to keep him happy like many of today's drivers and owners.
Yates, who recently drove past Johnson's farm, envies his former boss and rival on some levels.

"What Junior always did, he just enjoyed life and he still enjoys life," Yates said. "I thought ... when I left there they'd struggle. You know what? He probably makes more money now than when he raced. He's probably got friends that won't stab him in the back.

"He's probably happier than a guy that's been pushed out of the sport screaming and kicking. I want to leave on the terms he left on."
Johnson is happiest fixing breakfast in his shop. He'll whip up a greasy order of six meats, scrambled eggs, fried apples and gravy with as much precision as he once set up winning cars.
When he's not cooking he's riding around the farm in his three-quarter ton pickup truck or making a contribution to his pork skin and country ham business that has grown from 25,000 pigs a year to 700,000.
"I was brought up on a farm," Johnson said. "It keeps you busy."
Lisa sometimes wonders how her husband does it. Like this past Tuesday, Johnson spent the afternoon driving a dump truck and helping a neighbor clean out a chicken house in 90-plus degree weather.
"He's on the go all the time," she said, smiling as she watches him in a couch-pillow fight with Meredith. "He's amazing. He often tells me he's like a cat with nine lives. I believe him."
Shop talk
Johnson stepped through the door holding a McCullough chainsaw that didn't want to cooperate and headed for Bruce Roney for advice.
Roney, a former NASCAR official who was in charge of credentials at the garage, has known Johnson for 35 years. He recalled the time he left Johnson in charge of his position for a few minutes.
"I had to go to the bathroom and Junior happened to be walking by, so I grabbed him and said, 'Junior, hold down the shop for me while I go,'" Roney said.
Johnson agreed, but Roney didn't leave the room entirely.
"I'd stayed just around the corner to see how he handled it," he said. "Well, this beautiful woman came up for her credentials, and Junior was doing a real good job getting her to sign all the right places like we had to do back then.
"Then he held out this other piece of paper and said, 'Put your address and phone number there.' I jumped out and said, 'Junior! That ain't the way we do it!"'
Johnson and Roney knew as much garage scoop during their day as anybody in NASCAR. They still know a lot, bringing up current scandalous rumors that haven't and may never be proven.
Johnson recalled talking to Neil Bonnett 30 minutes before he was killed during practice for the 1994 Daytona 500. He knew doctors had warned him not to compete and he wanted to offer his opinion.
"I said," Johnson recalled, 'What the hell are you doing? The doctors told you one hard lick could kill you.' He looked at me and said, 'Junior, I'd rather be dead than not racing.'
"I never understood that kind of thinking."
Johnson said he had similar conversations with Dale Earnhardt, who was killed on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500.

"I told him, 'Tell me what you've got to prove? You've won about every race there is,'" Johnson said. "People don't understand there can be more to life than driving cars."

Johnson occasionally gets a call for advice from one of today's drivers, but most only know about him from what they've read.
He calls four-time Nextel Cup champion Jeff Gordon the best current driver because of his experience and ability to drive well on all tracks. He doesn't like many of the things today's drivers do, such as blocking and bump drafting that has turned into "slam drafting."
He also isn't a big fan of the Car of Tomorrow that NASCAR will begin implementing on short tracks in 2007 because it takes away what was left of manufacturer identity.
But he likes the way the sport is growing.
"If you could see how big it's grown since I was racing," said Johnson, shaking his head. "It's not tapped out, either. It's going to get bigger yet."
Moonshine and friends
Johnson was feeding scraps to his dogs when a student film crew appeared at his shop.
"What they want me for?" he asked.
"Doing a documentary on moonshining," one of his friends said.
Johnson smiled.
"A good farmer basically grew grain to make moonshine to make money and provide for the family," he recalled of his childhood days. "Today, people play with it, but it's not a big business."
Asked if he still dabbled in moonshine, Johnson laughed and said, "No, no, no."
But Johnson's reputation as a bootlegger always will stick with him. He recently was approached for advice from a new company, Catdaddy Carolina Moonshine.
"The first thing I told them was take the word moonshine off the label," Johnson said. "Moonshining still doesn't sit well with folks."
Johnson then yelled to one of his friends who found a bottle of homemade beer on the cabinet.
"Take that bottle home and don't open it for a month so it'll be right," Johnson said.
Johnson immediately made it clear he didn't make the brew, and that it came from one of his friends.
"Like I said, I did it for money," he said. "It wasn't for play like today."
Another friend, Don Boots, soaked up every word. Boots grew up idolizing Johnson while living in Florida and can't believe he wound up settling near his hero's home.
That they've become friends sometimes feels surreal.

"He's the Babe Ruth of racing to me," Boots said. "I'm glad I got to grow up in a time when real men like him drove. You don't see many like him in today's generation."

As Boots' words drifted into the air Johnson headed for the back door, the opposite direction of the film crew. One of his hands yells that the crew was ready.
Johnson yelled back, "I'll be back in a few minutes. I'm not on the clock anymore."

[BringBackWilkesboro]

Wow. Where to start with that. It was excelent. Jounior is just the kind of guy the newer fans just dont get. Its to bad the kids today have almost nothing about the kind of guys that, over many many years, put this sport on the map. If they would just take some time to learn about it instead of ignoring it and waiting for it to go away, we wouldnt have the controversy and whining we have in the sport today, and we we wouldnt have all the whining fans complaining about how boring races are or how boring it is for a driver to run away with the points lead. And just one more comment before I go back to bed, what in the hell kind of setup was DW running where he had to put 32 rounds of bite in it!!?? 32!!!

[Quality88]

Originally Posted by BringBackWilkesboro

Wow. Where to start with that. It was excelent. Jounior is just the kind of guy the newer fans just dont get. Its to bad the kids today have almost nothing about the kind of guys that, over many many years, put this sport on the map. If they would just take some time to learn about it instead of ignoring it and waiting for it to go away, we wouldnt have the controversy and whining we have in the sport today, and we we wouldnt have all the whining fans complaining about how boring races are or how boring it is for a driver to run away with the points lead. And just one more comment before I go back to bed, what in the hell kind of setup was DW running where he had to put 32 rounds of bite in it!!?? 32!!!

Amen BBW, Amen.

[oncea3fan]

what in the hell kind of setup was DW running where he had to put 32 rounds of bite in it!!?? 32!!!

probably something he got from neil bonnett

[candlejack]

i wish I had time to read that story! Goodness, that looked awfully long!

[TN_Gal]

Originally Posted by oncea3fan

what in the hell kind of setup was DW running where he had to put 32 rounds of bite in it!!?? 32!!!

probably something he got from neil bonnett

Probably had to compensate for the 30 pounds of gravel he dropped on the track out the trap door under his car.....didn't they get away with that kind of crap "back in the day"????

[WVGrandma4Kasey]

Originally Posted by candlejack

i wish I had time to read that story! Goodness, that looked awfully long!

Candlejack it's worth the time, a really great piece on a real person and great racer.

[lilsexy08]

I forgot all about him! I feel stupid!