This Junior led racing’s golden age

If you glance at photographs from his younger days, back when having a good ol' time meant outrunning those local policemen and federal agents in the coal-black darkness of another Carolina night, Junior Johnson looks more Jethro Bodine than famous NASCAR driver.

Don't be fooled by the harmless grin of a former moonshiner from the rural South.

You have lived a fairly extensive life when your nickname is "The Last American Hero," when someone the genius of Tom Wolfe writes your story and someone the caliber of Jeff Bridges portrays you on screen and someone the legend of Bruce Springsteen includes you alongside James Dean and even Burt Reynolds when singing about who's gonna meet down at the Cadillac Ranch.

When you are credited with discovering one of racing's most popular strategies. Watch stock cars draft. That's all Junior Johnson.

He refers to what NASCAR will offer in today's Shelby American at Las Vegas Motor Speedway as cookie-cutter racing. This isn't how Johnson remembers it, lived it, loved it. He wishes the boys would be turned loose every now and then, wishes things again were like on those back-country roads decades ago, when a man won or lost a race on his own mastery and know-how.

"Just let them race," Johnson said. "Let them work on those cars more. Let them prove who knows more. They're all the same. They've got near 40 of the same car out there each week. I've told NASCAR that, but they feel it's best that everyone be alike. I don't agree with that."

They officially will welcome the inaugural class of the NASCAR Hall of Fame in May, and within the small but special group is one of the more entertaining types to lead a lap in the sport's history. Johnson will enter the Hall with Bill France Sr., Bill France Jr., Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt Sr.

All worthy of the honor.

Not all lived the life of Junior Johnson.

"It's the most exciting thing to happen to me in racing," he said. "You know, there were so many good competitors out there with good credentials. I credit those whiskey runs with having such a great career in NASCAR."

I am picturing a scene from "The Dukes of Hazzard," with Bo and Luke flooring The General Lee up and down county lines while carrying the moonshine for Uncle Jesse, evading the bumbling Roscoe P. Coltrane with each bootleg turn. Oh, yeah. Johnson is credited with that 180-degree move, too.

Wild and crazy times. He won 50 NASCAR races, most after he served 11 months of a two-year federal prison sentence for moonshining, a sentence that later was pardoned, for doing what his daddy taught him growing up on the farm in Wilkes County, N.C., and what he was one of the best at for years. He would purchase police lights and sirens to fool those lawmen chasing him. He began at age 14.

Jethro Bodine, he wasn't.

"Delivering moonshine at night gave me a whole perspective on what it took to win races," Johnson said. "Avoiding the police wasn't always an enjoyable thing to do -- you were scared to death to get caught or wreck. But late at night, it was just me against them. I miss those days. I won all them races.

"When they finally caught me, I was standing at the still, and they had me surrounded. I never got caught driving."

He retired in 1966 as the winningest driver never to win a championship. He is 78 now, part of Piedmont Distillers in Madison, N.C., home to what Johnson insists is the best whiskey on the market. He has come full circle, only now can do what he loves most without worrying about the police knocking at his door, unless they want to purchase some Midnight Moon or Catdaddy.

Johnson is here for today's race and will stand atop the platform before the flag is dropped. He might think back on the days when you could run a car that cost $1,000 and keep it up to snuff over a season for $3,000 more. Things are much different now but not necessarily better.

It makes you wonder how another Johnson -- a guy named Jimmie -- would have fared in a time when guys called Red and Slick and Fireball and Junior ruled the tracks.

"He would have done all right but would have also had a tough time," Junior Johnson said. "I don't give a damn how he's doing now, they would have jerked his steering wheel. He wouldn't be what he is today."

Spoken like a guy who never lost a race in the middle of those coal-black Carolina nights.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618.