Ronnie Johnson
Racing has always been a part of Ronnie Johnson’s life. From his early youth he thought about racing, followed his father’s racing exploits, and acted out his racing fantasies. And ultimately, of course, the Chattanooga, Tenn. native would go on to build his own legendary career in the sport he loves.
Johnson’s father, Joe Lee Johnson, was himself a championship competitor who will forever hold a place in the history books as the inaugural winner of the World 600 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway in 1960.
“I grew up around racing,” Johnson explained in a recent interview with InsideDirtRacing.com. “My dad raced. He didn’t try every way in the world to keep me from racing, but he knew what I was going to face because he had been there.”
Johnson recalled a childhood filled with dreams and desires while watching his dad make the sacrifices necessary to achieve racing greatness.
“When we were growing up, he had a little body shop out behind our house where he worked on his race car and he’d come in late at night tired and hungry,” Johnson recalled. “Everybody wants better for their kids, but I grew up around that. I grew up around that shop.”
Even after seeing his father being worn out after late nights in the garage, Johnson was undeterred in his desire to someday sit behind the wheel of a race car and roar around the track. But during his younger years, he had to be content with watching others race.
“I would sit in class in junior high school and wish the rain away on a Friday night so I could go watch my dad race at Boyd’s Speedway,” Johnson remembered with a smile. “I’d get somebody to take me out there or whatever. When you grow up around it like that, it’s what you want to do. I was the kid in elementary school who was making the race car noises going up and down the hall and the teachers would have to tell me to quieten down.”
And his time finally came during his teenage years.
“I knew what I wanted to do and I was seventeen when I decided that I was really going to do it,” the National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame member declared. “I asked my dad about building a car and he was kind of against it. But there was a guy who had run in what would have been called the Hobby class back then and had won a few races, but then he got married. It was a ’56 Chevy and my dad bought it for about $500 and he gave it to me for my graduation present.”
Ronnie Johnson’s car as it appeared several years ago
The driver who is known for often times rolling onto the grounds of whatever race track at which he plans to compete that night at the last minute remembered his first race. And he explained that his approach was a bit different in at least one noteworthy way than it is today.
“I raced the week after I graduated from high school,” Johnson said. “My first race was at Cleveland Speedway, I was hooked before then. Back then I was one of the first to arrive at the race track. The first night I raced, I wrecked and bent a frame horn on it. I had a frame horn welded back on it and the fenders replaced and that thing was ready to run again by Monday.
“Now it just seems like we have so much that goes with the car,” Johnson added. “I mean then, you were lucky if you had a spare tire and a floor jack. But we’ve got so much stuff now to clean and maintain that it takes half the week before you can really start working on the car if it’s just you and one other guy.”
But one thing remains to this day for Johnson. He still has a tremendous amount of passion for the sport and he still loves the good times it provides.
“I love it,” the ‘Chattanooga Flash’ insisted. “I’ve been doing this since 1973, 42 years, and I’m not going to be able to do it for another 42 more. Racing is fickle. You’ll have spells where you’ll get in a situation where you win four or five in a row and you think you’re going to go win the next one until you have a bad night.”
Ronnie Johnson celebrating one of his many victories.
