I write this with many tears in my eyes as I have lost three friends in the last few months that I became very close to in my time in racing. First there was H. C. Pritchard, who started his racing career in the cow pasture that Gene Stokes converted into a race track and recently, H. C.'s son Harry passed away and now the most famous of them all....J. D. (Junior) Johnson, Jr is gone. Johnson got his start dodging cow patties at the Sumter Speedway on Bethel Road near Sumter, S. C.
Johnson, like the older Pritchard, took to all the tracks being built in the Pee Dee area of South Carolina and he and his brother, Cecil were unbeatable at Hartsville, Dillon, Little River, Rockingham, Sumter, Summerville and many other tracks in the Carolinas and Georgia. Johnson built his own cars from front to back and did his own driving. He then founda long, lean drink of water by the name of Jimmy Hatchell who made his living making dentures, but he was some kind of a race driver. The combination of Jimmy Hatchell and Johnson along with the addition of brother, Cecil became unbeatable.
Then promoters began slipping some green in Johnson's pocket to make sure he had a car at the promoter's track. Another deal was struck so Hatchell would be the top attraction the same night at another track. A few years later another driver was added to the Johnson Stable by the name of J. D. (Slick) Johnson III.
Slick became a terror right off the bat and was a regular at Columbia, Myrtle Beach, Savannah and Fayetteville. He moved up to the NASCAR Grand National division, but dropped down to ARCA, where he lost his life.
There were two funny things that happened with Junior and me......The first was concerning Permatex Products. We had a Permatex race at Columbia on Thursday and since Junior had two cars there, I gave him two boxes of Permatex goodies. He put the boxes in his tool box and on Saturday night when he came up to me at Sumter, he had a cardboard of wrenches and the wrenches were covers with about a half-dozen shop rags. He pulled the rags off the wrenches and most of the Permatex adhesives had covered his tools. He said to me, "Since you gave me this stuff, I feel you should be me a new set of tools." I told him I thought the best thing to do was that I get him some more Permatex. He wanted me to clean his tools, but I talked him out of me having to do it because he had put both boxes in with the tools upside down.
Another night at Sumter, it started raining before the race go underway and I needed to talk to Junior about a story I was writing about him and we sat in my car with Junior breaking the conversation every couple of minutes telling me the rain was not going to let up and he needed to go racing somewhere else so he could make some money. He would say, "I ain't making no money here in this rain, man....I gotta go." Eventually, the rain stopped and we got the race in and who won.....None other than Junior Johnson.....
So long H. C. Pritchard, Harry Pritchard and Junior Johnson.......Thanks to all three of you for sharing a part of your life with me.
