"The Last American Hero is Junior Johnson, Yes!”

a legend of junior Johnson in this legend here is a country boy Junior Johnson one of the biggest copper steel operators of all times of an angle holla near North Wilkesboro in northwestern North Carolina he goes up to be a famous stock car racing driver as the motor of Thunder begins to lift up through him like a sigh and as I vaulted lays over in his hands reach up and there riding the rim of the bowl soaring over the ridges for ever routing the girl boards hard charging up with the automobile into their America and the hell those are Chios neurotic old boys trying to hold on from the whole pot with arms of cotton seersucker Junior [Music] Harlen Gingrich founded Esquire in 1933 it's now a thousand issues old it was a magazine that was begun with the mission to be all thanks to all men which is an impossibly broad mandate and along the way has found its niche as a magazine of tremendously ambitious writing they said magazine writers out in the land who were having an effect on the culture with every piece and Wolff was one of them when they came back with you know trophies and that was the place where the pluck trophies were displayed [Music] Esquire magazine was always at the top and always had the greatest photography they loved to explore they got the most out of the visual and they also obviously got the most out of the words kind of pieces that Esquire did in the sixties and seventies I really like anything that's being done now 1960s in America we were going from being a naive to more wise and culture that's where people like Tom Wolfe come in [Music] iris from Richmond Virginia my father had a farm but inside I realized that farming and I never really took Tom Wolfe is probably the most skillful writer in America I mean by that that he can do more things with words than anyone helps one thing is really important know about Wolfe he's an outsider in his own world I mean he's up there in New York with a chip on his shoulder because he's from the south skeptical of a lot of things including the politics of literary culture your sadism later is in the hands of the critical medium I don't think he can afford to be worried about things like that there was a bright line at the time between literature and journalism writers like wolf just were rebelling against him he just went and created what we now recognize as the New Journalism the idea was you're bringing to journalism the techniques of fiction interior monologues dialogue and the core the insistent desire to dramatize and make it big so I really see my role in anything of this sort and I always have as as to discover [Music] Junior Johnson a bull shouldered 225 pounder was born a mountain farm boy in the Rhondda community of Wilkes County North Carolina really good old boy working for s4 has an editor who knew all about Junior Johnson frankly I'd never heard NASCAR at that time and so I took this assignment to go write a story about junior johnny was very hot standing Tom and I had never worked before together but Esquire thought we'd be a good combination we went down to North Carolina and I learned that Tom like many New Yorkers at that time couldn't drive and I had to do the driving [Music] when I finally got a look at North Wilkesboro where Judy lived I realized this was something weird old southern it was probably in the 90s and Tom had that signature heavy white suit on and a fedora sort of stuff on the side of his head I thought he was a crank taking those one it was just funny I was dressed fairly low rent by New York standards but I was an alien creature when I got there I admired his idea that you got to get yourself out of your office and off the telephone and get out into the world and see what's going on and if you go do that it is amazing which you will find you'll find yourself on Mars [Music] [Music] this particular area was very isolated away from big town he had a lot of cover streams and stuff and it was ideal place to you know make moonshine but that he faked the whiskey and me and my brother would all the whiskey so and a lot of pride who makes the best we skin who's got the best liquor caller stuff like dad today junior took a chance letting Tom wolf into his world because most the other people around you know are very suspicious of people from New York coming down to herb right about this well Tom Wolfe walking around here was you go way out in the county in the middle of the night and get up on somebody's porch they may have a shotgun the answer the door but that last couple question for the huge but I look sir that standoff Dawson so that being cautious hey nobody lives in a man I don't know how to make whiskey I was you know like 16 years old haulin whiskey every night I couldn't get enough good good the title of the piece the last American Hero really comes from those origins in other words here's somebody who became a helpful other driver because he started out as business for his father you know it's a absolutely fascinating subject it's one of the great things about Wolfe as a writer he goes into North Carolina into jr. Johnson's world who like Wolfe was probably the most transgressive figure in his culture because he wanted to connect in a human way and he discovered something in the vitality of the experience that he was able to transfer directly to the page so I think it's safe to say the jr. Johnson story is absolutely the story where a wolf found his voice [Music] ten o'clock Sunday morning in the hills of North Carolina cars miles of cars in every direction millions of cars pastel cars aqua green aqua blue aqua beige aqua buff aqua dawn Eklund dusk aqua aqua aqua melaka malakal a common cloud lavender assassin pink record sheet raspberry nude strand carl honest thrill orange and baby fawn lust cream colored cars are all going to the stock car races and that old mother in north carolina son keeps the exploding off the windshield mother dog it was like a festival I was overwhelmed by it the girls up on top of the cars and showing themselves off such a joy around you Tom seemed to understand that he never lost a particle of that feeling he had a great day and a big day it's racetrack I kind of showed him around garages and stuff I didn't vote him down the road I was still worrying like we resolved bootleggers into Hanover say it some stock car drivers all lined up in those two tongue mothers that go over 175 miles an hour fireball robbers ready Lorenzen Ned Jarrett Richard Petty and the hardest of all the heart charges one of the fastest automobile racing drivers in history yes junior Johnson the two qualities in Jinja Johnson that he wants to bring to the surface one is he's got incredible incredible physical of a sort that you just don't see in the rest of the country of this place and the other big thing is these hostile to Authority what woof does is to get you feeling that when you're watching junior Johnson in a NASCAR race the cops are right behind great God Almighty smoking the gumballs so there goes jr. Johnson the huge Mountaineer jr. Johnson this is the man they say who knows no fear Oh crazy thing I've never been scared in a racecar any other kind of car cause I thought I was good enough trial lord I have and I was stock car racing a lot dependent on how fast you would be willing to drive into a curl and that just became sure animal daring sororal sullen code of honor and current that has produced visas the most daring minute sports wolf saw in this really clearly not about the money what's really going on here is southern male courage in a very pure [Music] there's this place in America that has a 18th century kind of attitude towards courage the idea of courage that has vanished from the rest of the society where people define themselves but their institutions in the presence of death valour is peculiar to this place the neighborhood of jr. Johnson and this racecar driver in the backwoods of Appalachian is an expression of the Valor that's the bottom of this thing the race car driving is almost just it's the froth on top [Music] Junior Johnson truly was a heroic figure to people in western part of North Carolina they've raised a six-year-old boy up in the hands say now this says Junior Johnson you remember that now you met Junior Johnson the girls would come up to him and say do my hand Junior do my hand which meant write your autograph in the back of my hand he not metal he's just a decent guy he's done very well but he hadn't forgot who helped him do well they prefer to build good ol boys he was a big big figure in the land of the good ol boys they'll come pouring out of the hills of Wilkes County to see good old jr. run and you know it's amazing only when I wrote this speech that I realized that these people are really not small-town people they not address like Hill dogs they didn't listen to country music either this was a new creature but you good old boy from the new south loves not to be a hillbilly anymore that was me and so I said it why is the way it ended up I realized that in the south cars had a tremendous symbolic meaning the meaning was you're getting away from that country life car meant everything it was freedom it was speed it was excitement in this cocktail of post-war people hungry for cars since the cars were a since we called stock cars there was that perception that what was racing was the same that was in the showroom and after every weekend race you know there'd be advertisements remember every car in that block was bought by an auto aging man what detroit discovered was at thousands of good old boys in the south we're starting to find allegiances to brands of automobiles according to which were the hottest on the stock car circuit the way they used to have them for hometown baseball team the south the hottest car buy areas in the country he was cognizant of the fact that this car culture this became this extension of what people wanted their lives to be the whole thing was an expression of freedom from the whole south I thought it was very important to establish all of that and not just have an article about a great race car driver that's what a visionary writer does he's looking to understand the world in a way that's not caricatured in a way that's entirely and wholly new and so he's seeing that his subject is changing before his eyes and so is the country it's through the prism of the world converging in North Carolina to do car racing we had Tom wolf was learning about the new South in 1965 I don't think anybody else was he was a literary person mingling with the masses and a lot of time was writing he's saying to people these people you think aren't worth paying attention to they are over a thing attention to and junior Johnson was modeling I didn't think and he will drive to story but I thought it was an awesome story things changed people changes but you don't want so never forget how you was brought up you know remember long as you live that article did that [Music] a stubborn notion a crazy notion yes jr. Johnson has followers who need to keep him symbolically riding through the nighttime like a demon madness but Junior Johnson is one of the last of these sports stars who is not just an ace at the game itself but a hero a whole people our class appeal can identify with jr. jr. Johnson live and breathe how you been getting along well not badly yeah I'm still vertical right that's half the battle that's true that's true come come have a seat okay riders who have power of the tombow fans create characters in the culture he turned jr. Johnson into national celebrity that's URI caught in my bootlegging days is the best thing ever happened especially NASCAR I think I got a boy I like that piece really didn't he did a lot for me for one thing it can open up a world that outside him at that time outside of the Southland was not known variable but opened a few eyes people like jr. Johnson and Tom wolf it was a force they're focused on life and humanity was extraordinary a con that did their own thing both of those good things that fits the name drafting I think you're just gonna stick with each other yeah we we've been friends you know we remember this story because it had a big beating heart at its center they wanted to understand and love its subject it is by bridging that gap and culture geography and understanding that makes it as thrilling today as it was 50 years ago the jr. Johnston story one of the greatest stories Esquires ever published [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: NASCAR

Views: 68,775

Rating: 4.8875351 out of 5

Keywords: NASCAR, motorsports, racing, stock car, Tom Wolfe

Id: qSW3WBoEkWc

Length: 18min 30sec (1110 seconds)

Published: Wed May 16 2018