Junior Johnson is a name in the NASCAR community that will always be considered a legend. Although he never won a Cup Series championship in his career, he made a name for himself as a title-winning owner. Not to say that he was not a good driver, as he did accumulate 50 wins in his day and had a best finish of 6th in 1955 and 1961.
Johnson is a racer from a bygone era, back when NASCAR still had its roots in bootlegging. The late racer-turned-team owner is popularly known as the Last American Hero. His skills behind the wheel and his personality contributed heavily to NASCAR in its infancy. Even after he got arrested for his moonshine activities, his impact was so great that he earned a presidential pardon from Ronald Reagan.
On the racing front, Junior Johnson has had many standout moments in his 14-year stint as a driver. One of them was at the Darlington Raceway all the way back in 1953. As it turned out, this was his debut race, and unfortunately, it went up in smoke. However, Johnson was a certified bad— because when his engine blew and went up in flames, he used his shirt to put it out.
When the incident happened, his #75 Oldsmobile spun out of control before barrel-rolling once and landing on its wheels. Frankly, it was a miracle that the car didn’t sustain more hits from the oncoming traffic. Johnson wasn’t waiting for the emergency response unit and got straight to work. He opened the hood of his race car and saw the engine had caught fire. The next thing he did was take off his shirt and stuff it inside the hood to prevent the flames from spreading even more.
Unfortunately, it still meant that his race was over, and his debut went up in flames despite the heroics. On the bright side, his career began picking up from then onwards, with a 5th place at Hickory Speedway. The first win came in his maiden full-time season in 1955, and he went on an absolute tear as he bagged five wins on his full NASCAR debut.
Junior Johnson’s fire-suppression system in 1953: His shirt.#NASCARThrowback | #Darlington pic.twitter.com/FsFx5BzGIE
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) April 4, 2025
Those were enough to put him third behind eventual champion Tim Flock on 18 and Lee Petty on 6 wins. Junior Johnson did go through a bit of a dry spell until 1958 when he racked up six wins that year, but was 8th in the championship. From there, Johnson bagged more wins before another breakthrough campaign in 1965 with an astounding 13 wins. Sadly, he still finished the season in 12th place, which must have been incredibly disappointing, while Ned Jarrett won the title.
After 1966, Junior Johnson began a brand new era for himself. He entered his own team, Junior Johnson and Associates, and even raced for them. The team also competed for a very long time, from 1953 to 1995, picking up 6 titles along the way. The first one came in 1976 at the hands of Cale Yarborough, who snagged three Winston Cup titles in a row. Then, in 1981, it was Darrell Waltrip, and he repeated the feat in 1982 and 1985.
The Lady in Black has always tested and torunemnted even the best drivers NASCAR had to offer. While Johnson had to battle the flames, Richard Petty had a close call after he survived a nerve-wracking crash back in 1970.
Richard Petty’s 1970 Darlington crash led to the use of window net on the race cars
The Track Too Tough to Tame brought King Petty to his knees while competing in the NASCAR Grand National Series race on May 9, 1970. The incident happened on Lap 176 when Petty lost control of his car and slammed hard into the concrete wall. His car barallel rolled four time before coming to rest, not on the wheel but upside down. It wasn’t a pretty sight, and many feared he had lost his life.
Petty was knocked out, and the red rug that fell off his car made it appear that he was drenched in blood. “At the time, I used to run with a rag in my mouth. Well, them rags got to coming out the window and stuff, it looked terrible.” Petty explained. As it turned out the only thing apart from the broken car was the right shoulder, but even the ride to hospital was an eventful one for King Petty.
“The car driving didn’t know how to get out of the infield. He would have driven on the track if I hadn’t stopped him. He didn’t know about the runner under Turn 3 and didn’t know how to get to the hospital in Florence. Start to finish, it was quite a deal.” He added.
This incident led to NASCAR implementing the use of window net in the driver’s side door. After missing next five races, Petty made his comeback at Michigan International Speedway and he went onto bag 18 wins out of 40 races that season.
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