This is huge.
My family and I have given this election a lot of thought.Our country is in a rough spot, and we're going to need some serious change. There's only one candidate ready to deliver it -- and that's Barack Obama...
Every day I talk to someone else who's never voted for a Democrat, but now they're voting for Barack Obama. They realize that Barack understands what we're going through here in North Carolina. And they're ready for change.
So I've made up my mind, and I'm ready to get involved. I know that I could never have won a race without my pit crew, and I know Barack can't win this one without us.
Who is Junior Johnson, you ask? From Wikipedia:
Robert Glen Johnson, Jr. (born June 28, 1931 in Wilkes County, North Carolina), known as Junior Johnson, was a moonshiner in the rural South who became one of the early superstars of NASCAR in the 1950s and 1960s. He won 50 NASCAR races in his career before retiring in 1966. In the 1970s and 1980s he became a NASCAR racing team owner; he sponsored such NASCAR champions as Cale Yarborough and Darrell Waltrip. He now produces a line of fried pork skins and country ham. He is credited with discovering drafting.
Wikipedia adds that Johnson is "a legend in the rural South, where his driving expertise and 'outlaw' image was much admired." He also apparently invented the "bootleg turn" and "is credited with discovering drafting." Wow!
http://www.juniorjohnson.org/h...
for the full text of the Tom Wolfe article in Esquire magazine that made Junior famous outside racing and bootlegging circles.
If Junior is serious about getting invovled, there needs to be a film crew there NOW. And they need to have an ad up in NASCAR country by Friday.
"But the most important reasons I'm speaking out for Barack Obama are named Robert and Meredith, my two children. My wife Lisa and I talked it over, and honestly, we know in our gut that their future is more secure if Barack Obama is president."
In 1961, at age 11, I began to travel with my father, mother and brother to NASCAR races throughout the southeastern United States, and there was only one person for whom we were cheering back then - Junior Johnson, especially when he drove that amazing 1963 Chevy.
Today, Barack Obama could not have picked up a better sponsor in North Carolina - or the South - than Junior Johnson, and with Johnson now an official member of his pit crew, it looks to me like the hard-charging Obama's headed for that political checkered flag early next week.
Thanks!
Steve
I agree, get the advetisment and announcement up immediately, if not sooner, all over the South... hells bells, Pennsylvania and Ohio, too.
Steve
http://www.univie.ac.at/Anglis...
Three years ago I took the words from the song, mapped out the route that Mitchum's character, "Lucas Doolin", is reported to have driven, then rode it on my motorcycle from beginning to end. I started out in Harlan, Kentucky and continued into Virginia via the Cumberland Gap and ended up near Knoxville, Tennessee where "Lucas" met his young and untimely end but launched Robert Mitchum's stellar career.
With Junior Johnson's endorsement, it is in those parts of this nation - and in other places like them - that I hope Barack Obama is able to increase his vote totals significantly in order to motor on to victory next week.
"Let me tell the story, I can tell it all..."
Thanks for invoking great memories!
Steve
James Dean in that Mercury '49
Junior Johnson runnin' thru the woods of Caroline
Even Burt Reynolds in that black Trans-Am
All gonna meet down at the Cadillac Ranch
They could use the song for background on the Junior Johnson commercial. (Could he leave a guy in an old Ford "Maverick" or on a "snow machine" in the dust just for fun?)
Not exactly the last person you'd expect to endorse Barack, but not exactly living up to the stereotype, either. Hmmmm, what does that tell us about stereotypes?