Some of you will understand what Junior’s passing means.
Here are the first few paragraphs of the Washington Post report of his passing.
One summer day in 1949, Junior Johnson was plowing a cornfield barefoot behind a mule on his family’s farm in Ingle Hollow, N.C., when his brother pulled up in one of the family’s moonshining cars. He said a local racetrack needed cars to fill out the field for a race.
Mr. Johnson, pushing 16 at the time, tied the mule to a fence, found some shoes, drove to North Wilkesboro Speedway and entered the race. He finished second, launching one of the most colorful and celebrated careers in American motorsports history.
Tom Wolfe memorialized him as “The Last American Hero” in the pages of Esquire, Jeff Bridges played him in a movie version of the Wolfe story, and Bruce Springsteen sang about him in “Cadillac Ranch.” Sports Illustrated extolled him as the best racecar driver ever. President Ronald Reagan pardoned him for his long-ago moonshining conviction.
Mr. Johnson, who learned to manhandle a car while outrunning federal officers and used that skill to win 50 NASCAR races, died Dec. 20 while in hospice care in Charlotte, according to a NASCAR spokesperson. He was 88, and information on the cause was not immediately available.
I’m raising a few sips of Junior’s Mountain Moon in his memory.