Junior Johnson - Last American Hero Is Hall of Famer

Junior Johnson - Last American Hero Is Hall of Famer

CONCORD, N.C. -- Smiling ear-to-ear, 78-year old Junior Johnson declared his selection for the inaugural NASCAR Hall of Fame class "the biggest thing that's ever happened to me" in a storied career that included 50 race wins as a driver and six Cup championships as a team owner.

When asked if being a Hall of Famer was how he'd most want to be remembered, the single recognition he'd like on his headstone one day, Johnson deadpanned with a twinkle in his eye, "I'd want it to say, 'He didn't cheat as much as everyone thought he did.' ...

"But that would be a lie too," Johnson added as the room filled with laughter.

The subject of the great Tom Wolfe classic, "The Last American Hero," Johnson wasn't able to attend the Hall of Fame announcement ceremony Wednesday in downtown Charlotte because of recent back surgery. But he watched on television, "and I will never forget when (NASCAR Chairman) Brian France called out my name."

Wearing a flexible brace around his waist to steady his back, Johnson met with reporters Friday and it was easy to imagine what a character Johnson was when he was racing in the 1950s and 1960s.

He was immortalized in Wolfe's 1965 article in Esquire Magazine that eventually was made into "The Last American Hero" movie. Many consider that exposure as the single biggest event to bring the fledgling, regional sport into the country's national consciousness.

As the story goes, Johnson ran moonshine in rural North Carolina. He started competing in NASCAR races in 1955 but his career was briefly interupted when he was arrested for working at his father's moonshine still. He served less than a year in jail and returned to the circuit in 1958. President Ronald Reagan pardoned him in 1986.

Two years after serving his jail sentence Johnson won the Daytona 500 and first started experimenting with what we know as "drafting" today.

Johnson retired as a driver in 1966 and fielded cars for greats like Bobby Allison, Cale Yarborough and Darrell Waltrip -- collecting three championships each with Yarborough and Waltrip -- three drivers likely to be in the next Hall of Fame class.

Johnson said Friday that he and Allison might also have had a championship combination had Allison not left to run his own team.

"If Bobby Allison would have stayed with me, Richard Petty's record wouldn't be what it is today," Johnson said. "It'd be Bobby Allison's record."

And while Johnson insisted - partially tongue-and-cheek - that he was the best driver that ever drove for him, he also predicted several of his drivers would eventually get into the Hall, which opens next May.

"What you gave to racing is what got in the other day,'' Johnson said. "What you did in racing, is what will get you in the next round."