As has been mentioned before, Billy Scott had three track championships in the 1967 season. It was the most laboring and stressing year of his racing career. Two of the championship tracks were at least 250-300 miles from home. The travel was more difficult after working a 10 hour day shift.
He was driver of Marion Cox's car and they were racing three tracks regularly, specifically for the championships. The tracks were Starlite Speedway in Monroe, N.C., Charleston Speedway in Charleston, S.C., and Savannah Speedway in Savannah, Ga.. They were also running Columbia Speedway, in Columbia, S.C. on thursday nights. As is well known, Marion "Preacher" Cox would not begin a race after 12 a.m. on sunday morning.
Savannah was a Saturday night race, but the last race would be on sunday. Billy and Dean Hendley were in a tight battle in points, with this being the last race. Billy, Ralph Earnhardt and Junior Johnson of Florence were discussing the tightness of the points race in Savannah. Marion had already told Billy they would not take the car to race on Sunday. They all knew Billy's chance of winning would be over if he missed that one race.
As they were leaving the track in Columbia, Junior told Billy he should come to Savannah and maybe he would let him drive his car. We left home on sunday morning with Billy's hopes of winning the championship all but gone.
He knew what the points were, as wife Barbara had kept all of the finishing positions from the scorers. Heat races were run as Billy watched from the top of Junior's truck in the pits. Ralph Earnhardt had won the first heat, with Junior Johnson on the outside pole.
As the track steward began lining the cars up on the track to begin the final race, Junior Johnson looked toward the pits and saw Billy on top of his truck. He motioned for Billy to come to the track, with his helmet. Billy moved faster than he did in some of the race cars he drove, to get to Junior. As he reached the car, Junior began to climb out, telling Billy to get in and win that race. Can anyone even imagine, a driver getting out of a car he had put on the outside poll and put a driver in, who had never driven the car? Junior did just that and Billy won the race with Ralph Earnhardt a very, very close second. It was just as if the Lord Himself had gotten involved in the situation. Billy did not want to take any of the winnings but Junior wouldn't hear of it and paid Billy something for driving. All the way home Billy kept saying,"I wish I hadn't took that money".
After the last race, scores were tallied and listed in the Nascar Newsletter that Dean Henley had won the Track Championship for 1967. Barbara did not agree with Nascar and immediately called Daytona and filed a written appeal. She explained in her complaint that Billy had won over Dean by a mere 4 points. Once Daytona checked the points for the year, the Scott's received a letter from the secretary who kept the score sheets and posted them to the drivers. She apologized and said she had been trying for months to get a new adding machine, and thanks to the Scotts' Nascar had bought her one.
It took a roundabout way to get to this point. It's not about the car, it's not about the points, nor is it about a championships; it's all about Junior Johnson who actually gave up a win to help a fellow driver's dreams come true. He could have won the race and got the glory for doing so. Instead, his thoughts were to help another driver from losing what he had raced for all year. More than ever before, the Scotts' believe the Lord shows the best in people, at a time of need.
Thank you Junior and in our eyes you are the "Famous Junior Johnson"!!!!!!"
God bless you and we love you,
Billy Scott and Family
(****Note**** Junior Johnson has passed away not too long after this article was written. Billy was happy he was able to publically thank Junior for an act of kindness and love which will never be forgotten by the Scott Family.)
Great story Barbara...Three points made in this story. 1) Marion Cox was as good as his word and he felt that God was above all else. He even turned down sure wealth by telling Ford Motor Company that he appreciated its offer of joining that company as a car owner in the now known as Spring Cup division because he honored his Lord on Sundays. 2) Even though Junior Johnson won several hundred races and won many championships in the Carolinas, Georgia and Virginia as a driver, he also fielded cars for such drivers as Jimmy Hatchell, his brother, Cecil Johnson, his son "Slick", Sam Ard and Lee Roy Yarbrough. But, he would also give a fellow driver the shirt off his back if it was needed. 3) You and Billy showed that one never gives up and if you trust God and your fellow man, good things will usually happen. The reputation you, Billy and your family built everywhere you went was enough for Junior Johnson to put his trust in your husband, and it paid off for both men.
"It's All About Junior Johnson" is an awesome story about "one good man" putting others first. Now that's the kind of man I want my little boy to know about and pattern his life after. There's a little song we use in Sunday school that sums it all up. "J-O-Y, J-O-Y, tell you what it means, J-esus first...y-ourself last...and o-thers in between". Somehow by this story I just bet Junior Johnson is a man that's got or had a lot of joy in his life because when you put others first it just seems to make you feel happy and joyful. Thanks for posting this, I sure got a lot out of this very precious example of mankind. It was a pleasure to read and gives a gal hope that there are some good, good folks still out there. Jeanne Milstead
Dargan, thank you so much for adding the info and picture of Junior Johnson. He is one driver who deserves all the attention this will bring to him. Keep up the posting as we or among the many who enjoy all you post.God bless, and we love you,,Billy and Barbara
Awesome.
Thank you for posting this story about my grandfather. I think it says a lot about Billy Scott's driving ability, to get in a car he had never driven before and win a race against Ralph Earnhardt, that is (or was) pretty hard to do.
I wasn't aware that Junior was still racing in '67I thought that he had hung it up after the 65 season when both he and Ned Jarrett decided to quit racing. I can remember the stories floating around how Ned and his wife sold tickets to the Charlotte Speedway out of the trunk of their car to make ends meet.Back in the old days, it wasn't about the money. Billy Teagarden would often tell stories about how he would race for nothing and how he had a guy that was his pit crew that would quit a job tomorrow to go racing.I often times took people, even people out of the stands and put them in a new suit and let them drive my car. Mainly because I got a thrill out of seeing it go around the track and I knew that what ever the car won, I could put back into the car. When it had a bad night, I couldn't afford to both eat and race. But I always made sure that who ever drove it, how ever they finished, got at least enough money to make it home, or paid their way into the pits for the night.Today it is so much about ME, where the person that owns the car wants to drive the car to prove to everyone how good of a mechanic and driver they are. They don't realize that for every one person out on the track, there is 10 or 20 people sitting in the stands that once drove, but had to quit because they couldn't afford to do it anymore.The funny thing is - if most of them were to contribute to the effort and hang out at the garages and help with somebody else s race car. I am sure that more of them would get the opportunity to get behind the wheel one more time. It all boils down to how bad do you want to race.The funny thing was, back in the early 1980's when I was coming up. The schools didn't carry any racing magazines and I was big time into NASCAR. That was all I wanted to do. When my uncle told me flat out that I was not welcome to participate due to the fact that I was a Yankee and it was a predominately southern sport. I changed my ways and looked to other venue's to get my racing fix. Little did I know that soon, the yankee's were coming and the old guys were being asked to leave and the young guns were about to take over.The sad part about it all was when people like Cale and Bobby and David had to leave the sport and soon after even Harry Gant and others were long gone.The problem with today's sport is, unless you race on asphalt and have a big time sponsor, you just can't do it on a competitive level. If that was my racecar and someone told me that I couldn't use it to race the last night for the points. I sure as heck would have found a way for the haul truck to break down on the side of the road on the way home from the last race and would have found a way to get it to the other track to compete. I wouldn't have accepted that someone was going to tell me that I couldn't race. Junior giving up his car - had more to do with him not wanting to see someone cheated out of the points then it did with Billy winning the championship.Junior had already proved to everyone what he was capable of doing. He had nothing left to prove.I don't know if Junior really liked Ralph or if he wanted to just hand a win or a championship over to him. Back in those days, everyone knew everyone and everyone helped everyone and a lot of the old junk parts that Junior threw away, Ralph used on his race machines.Later that same animosity boiled over into Dales career where Junior wouldn't hire him, and Dale had connected himself to everyone in the sport that he possibly could. Look at his uncle that worked for the Petty's. His wife's family that owned a track. His dad who built and raced cars.He would have been a shoe in today and wouldn't have had to work so hard.
JB, We may not be talking about the same Jr. Johnson. The one in the story is about the one from Florence, S.C. and drove dirt and asphalt in the Late Model Sporstman Division, back in the day. If that's not the one you are speaking of and don't know the one in the story, you really missed a a great part of racing history.There's as many, if not more, Jr Johnsons' as there are Bud Moores'. How most of them wound up in racing we'll never know, but we are thankful they all did. I drove for three Jr. Johnsons.God bless and we love you,Billy and Barbara Scott