There are moments in a teenager’s life which will never be unforgotten.

For veteran Pro Stock driver Kurt Johnson, that moment was his introduction to Bristol’s Thunder Valley Dragway, thirty years ago.

Pro Stock driver Warren Johnson, a seven-time winner at Bristol in the spring, kept his sixteen year old son up into the wee hours of the morning on his way to the first of those seven wins. Rain and wrecks made for a long day at the 1979 IRHA Sun Drop Spring Nationals and it was just minutes before 3 A.M., when Kurt watched his father cross the finish line.

For Kurt, Bristol was more than just an experience. It was a marathon.

“We made the long tow from Fridley, Minnesota,” the younger Johnson recalled. “We were racing all the southern boys down here and they really didn’t like us.”

There are moments in a teenager’s life which will never be unforgotten.

For veteran Pro Stock driver Kurt Johnson, that moment was his introduction to Bristol’s Thunder Valley Dragway, thirty years ago.

Pro Stock driver Warren Johnson, a seven-time winner at Bristol in the spring, kept his sixteen year old son up into the wee hours of the morning on his way to the first of those seven wins. Rain and wrecks made for a long day at the 1979 IRHA Sun Drop Spring Nationals and it was just minutes before 3 A.M., when Kurt watched his father cross the finish line.

For Kurt, Bristol was more than just an experience. It was a marathon.

“We made the long tow from Fridley, Minnesota,” the younger Johnson recalled. “We were racing all the southern boys down here and they really didn’t like us.”

The car the elder Johnson brought to the race was just as ugly, if not uglier, than the weather forecast. Those at the track nicknamed the 1976 Camaro the Hulk. The worn out Pro Stocker exhibited similar mannerisms to the fictional character it was named after. The car would twist, stretch and scream for the entire quarter-mile.

Standing on the starting line, long before drag racing’s insurance companies enforced minimum age requirements, the impressionable future drag racer watched in amazement.

He wondered how something so ugly could run so strong.

“It had brown primer fiberglass doors on it,” Johnson recalled. “We had actually blown the door off a few weeks earlier in Commerce, Ga.”

Those makeshift fiberglass door remained on the hinges as Johnson crossed the dew-drenched finish line ahead of the reigning Pro Stock world champion “General” Lee Edwards.

Johnson learned that to the winner goes the spoils and at 3 A.M., in the Bristol Tri-Cities area, the late night dining options are limited.

“We feasted at the Waffle House a little after 3:30 in the morning,” Johnson said of the celebration meal.

After years of racing on the big stages of the NHRA and AHRA, the Johnson family had traveled into the heart of IHRA Pro Stock and won. That was enough of a statement to grab the attention of the “locals” who didn’t take kindly to the northerner coming into their backyard and winning.

Johnson remembers the sneers and jeers associated with a trespass into the good ‘ole boy network.

“We had a big Doberman that we carried with us,” Johnson revealed. “Caesar … that was his name … kept everyone in line.”

“It was fun and we met a lot of people,” Johnson recalled.

Johnson had met most of the names on the other circuits but that weekend opened up his circle to include the names of Billy Ewing, Harold Denton and Pat Musi, just to name a few.

“All you were concerned about back then were win lights,” Johnson admitted.

One really didn’t concern themselves with the dangers of Pro Stock cars that weren’t built to run as quick as the IHRA racers were pushing their equipment. The cars Johnson and others raced were built for small block engines displacing nearly 300 cubic inches less than they had between the fenders that weekend.

Warren once referred to the early years of the mountain motor Pro Stockers as “white knuckle rides” for their tendency to make abrupt moves during the course of the run. Johnson agreed with his dad.

“I remember back then we ran on Firestone tires. The tires were only twelve inches wide and the engines were close in size to what we have now. We ran around an 8.15 elapsed time.  The equipment is much better and safer today. The tracks weren’t prepared the same way, so I guess it was a white knuckle ride.

“You could see the white knuckles because you didn’t have to wear as much safety equipment. He had no safety equipment. He didn’t have any gloves … just a light safety jacket and blue jeans. Your safety equipment was your sneakers and your fire jacket.”

Did Johnson ever scream for his father to lift out of fear? Not usually. He knew the patriarch knew the right time.

“Usually when he hit the grass like he did once at Elk Creek Dragway [Va.] is when I would start saying to myself, ‘Dad lift. Lift Dad,” Johnson said. “It ended up making him a better driver.” 

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