Darlington 60th Flashback: Johnson the all-time No. 1?

DARLINGTON, S.C. -- Ask racing legend Junior Johnson who his best driver was at Darlington Raceway, and you have to add the codicil, "present company excepted."

Picking No. 2 is hard, he said. But No. 1?

"I always thought I was the best," Johnson said, chuckling. "I just didn't have the patience."

• Cup Series tickets
• Nationwide Series tickets
• Book your travel

Johnson, 77, is justified in his self-assessment, and right, too. A racing pioneer from the mountains of North Carolina, he was named as one of NASCAR's 50 Greatest Drivers in 1998, and (that same year) the best stock-car driver of all time by Sports Illustrated.

He's dead-on about the patient part, too.

"I can remember several times at Darlington when Junior would have the car to beat," said retired journalist Tom Higgins, who co-authored Johnson's biography in the late 1990s. "He'd run it flat-out, and sometimes right into the ground."

Johnson admits as much himself: "I had that place almost in reach several times when I was driving, and it flew up and beat me down," he said. "You let your guard down at Darlington and you've just made a big mistake."

The difficulty stemmed from the fact that the track was unlike anything he'd seen. Most racetracks, then and now, are similar in the turns; that is, the entrance to Turn 1 is similar to the entrance to Turn 3, and the exit of Turn 2 is the same as Turn 4.

With Darlington's unique egg shape, Johnson said, "No one of the four would match the other. You'd let your guard down because you got through [Turn] 1 real good, go down to 3 and it'd nail you."

But that, he said, was what made Darlington his favorite track. "It was so competitive. That's why it was my favorite," Johnson said. "When you go to Darlington, you think you're gonna whup up on everybody down there, and you forget you have got to whup that race track first.

"I've never been as proud of winning a race as I was when I finally won there," he said. "It gave me a lot of satisfaction, that I finally beat it."

It's a testament to the difficulty of the old track that only one of Johnson's 50 wins during his 14-year driving career came at Darlington.

Yarborough honored with pace-car duties

Cale Yarborough will serve as the honorary pace-car driver to start the Southern 500. Yarborough, a native of nearby Timmonsville, S.C., is tied with Jeff Gordon for the most wins in the Southern 500 with five.

"Coming back to Darlington for the return of the Southern 500 is very special for me," Yarborough said. "I remember sneaking under the fence at Darlington years ago just to catch a glimpse of the race and that made getting to Victory Lane here very special. To be recognized during pre-race and drive the pace car to start the Southern 500 is a true honor."

In addition to Yarborough, several other former Darlington winners will be honored during pre-race ceremonies. All-time Darlington victory leader David Pearson, Richard Petty, Ned Jarrett, Buddy Baker and Sterling Marlin also will be honored along with all active Darlington winners.

But his success as a car owner (11 wins with six drivers, including himself) ranks Johnson second on the all-time Darlington winners list.

When you note the drivers who won at Darlington under Johnson's banner, the list reads like a who's-who.

• LeeRoy Yarbrough swept both the spring and fall races in 1969.
• Bobby Allison won the 1972 Southern 500 in the pair's only season together.
• Cale Yarborough won the Southern 500 in 1973, '74 and '78.
• Darrell Waltrip won the spring races in 1981 and '84.
• Bill Elliott posted victories in the 1992 TranSouth 500 and '94 Southern 500.

There's not a bad horse in that stable, so you can see why Johnson hesitated to pick a favorite.

"I had so many good drivers who could drive at Darlington, it's just hard for me to name one of them that was better than the other," he said. "One thing was most were in their prime. If you've got a driver who's in his prime and beating everybody out there, it's hard to pick someone else over him."

When fans think of Johnson's first race they remember the story of the barefoot boy who parked his mule in 1949 to go race at North Wilkesboro, N.C., near his home.

It was not until 1953, however, that he got his first taste of NASCAR -- and Darlington.

Johnson's first NASCAR race was the Southern 500 that fall. He didn't exactly set the woods afire; Johnson started 26th and finished 38th, crashing out after 110 of 364 laps.

He got his first "official" Darlington win in the 1965 Rebel 300, two days after NASCAR disallowed Bud Moore's protest that his driver, Darel Dieringer, was the rightful winner. Which, Johnson said, was poetic justice for the one he had taken away from him in the '62 Southern 500.

Johnson was flagged the winner that day, but a protest by Lee Petty opened a can of worms that jumbled the finishing order and put Larry Frank at the top of the list, with Johnson second. It was after midnight when NASCAR flip-flopped the verdict.

"I still think I won that race," Johnson said. "Glen Wood knows that he ran second, and he wound up eighth. A lot of people thought they didn't run in the position that they gave them. I know I didn't."

When he finally got one etched in stone, Johnson said, it took a while to sink in.

"I was so young and wild in 1953 I didn't even have an idea what it was," he said. "It was a different animal once I got on the track with all the other drivers.

"There was Fonty and Tim Flock, Speedy Thompson, Herb Thomas -- many, many of the great race car drivers I later raced against, and they were the best that could be found.

"I show up and don't know a thing about racing, and [thinking] I'm gonna beat 'em all," Johnson said.

"Sure enough, I wound up beating them all."