JUNIOR JOHNSON From moonshine runner to NASCAR pioneer Photograph signed: "Junior Johnson". Color, 7x5. Robert Glen "Junior" Johnson(1931-2019) began souping up and running stock cars while transporting his dad's moonshine liquor. Junior was never caught on the highways, though he served 11 months in prison after the feds caught him at his father's still. (He was pardoned by President Reagan in 1986, his record expunged.) The native North Carolinian became a folk hero when he drove his privately financed Chevy to victory over factory sponsored cars at the Daytona 500 in 1960. Let no one be fooled by his "good old boy" image, helpful thought it may be today in marketing his brand of ham hocks and pork rinds. Johnson is smart. He was the first driver to use slipstreaming in a NASCAR race, and the first to communicate with his pit crew with a radio in his helmet. More important still, recognizing an opportunity in 1970 when cigarette ads were banned from TV, he persuaded R. J. Reynolds to sponsor NASCAR racing and the Winston Cup. (Sponsors were scarce in the sport's infancy, and the automakers were reducing their funding.) After retiring from racing in 1966, Johnson began sponsoring cars, winning 139 races with some of the sports leading drivers. Thus, Junior Johnson played a huge role in making NASCAR the popular phenomenon it has become. A stretch on US highway 421 in North Carolina is named in Johnson's honor. Fine condition.