Slow Baja - Johnny Johnson Baja In His Blood

Episode Date: April 30, 2023

Johnny Johnson was one of the early champions in off-road racing. With 112 career victories, and eight Baja 1000’s where he proudly claims “l never got out of the car!” Johnson was one of the very very best in the dirt. He was inducted into the Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2010. Revered by his fellow racers for his fabrication and tuning skills, it is his humility and willingness to help anyone, anytime, that his friends say is his defining trait. Famed writer, George Plimpton chose Johnson, to star in his 1971 television special “Behind The Wheel.” In the feature, Plimpton interviewed Formula One racer Jackie Stewart at the Monaco Gran Prix before jumping into Johnny’s buggy for the Baja 1000. Thanks to Carol Mears, and Lynn Chenowth for arranging this Slow Baja conversation.

This podcast is powered by Tequila Fortaleza, handmade in small batches, and hands down, my favorite tequila. It's Michael Emery. Thanks for tuning in to Slow Baja. My heaping dose of gratitude this week goes out to Lynn Cheneth. We had the pleasure of staying at the Chenet Legacy Lodge while on the Baja XL rally. And Lynn roused his good friend, his high school buddy,

Johnny Johnson, and got him to come down to the lodge to talk to us on Slow Baja. And I am just delighted to share the show with you. I had Kaiser. That's right. Kaiser, my podcast producer was shooting film, and we were out under a palapa at the beach. And, man, what a spot. Well, I'm not going to wax on any further because Johnny Johnson,

he's a great storyteller. and I'm going to let him do the talk. And so without further ado, Johnny Johnson on Slow Baja. As a legend racer yourself, Johnny, and I hate to even start with that phrase, but you get a guy like, you get a guy like Bob Bondurant who went down LaMau at 200 plus in the rain at night. Like, as a driver and a damn fine driver. like yourself, how do you respect other people who did that stuff in those days and did it the highest level like he did?

In the Plumpton special that I did with George, he goes to England and gets involved with Jackie Stewart on the Formula One team. And in the interview, Plumpton asks him that same question. and he says speed doesn't exist for a race car driver it only exists when something goes wrong wow he says like walking through your living room day after day it all looks the same until somebody moves the chair and you trip over it you fall over there you know and it was just like okay i can you know well i'm going to get us introduced here it's slow bottom We're at the beautiful Chenethe Legacy Lodge in Perseaboo, and I'm with the living legend Johnny Johnson,

and I'm just delighted that you made some time for us. And I've got Christopher Kaiser here on the camera, making the sound good. We are recording. Yes, we are. And Johnny, good morning, Amigo. Hi, how are you doing? You weren't going to meet me until 10 because they don't legally sell beer here at the Chenith Lodge until 10 a.m. But I'm glad you came in a little early.

It's 9.15. Yeah, well, I have a station at home. I didn't think I'd be out of bed yet. Yeah, well, Lynn kicked you out of bed to come and talk to me and I really appreciate it, so thank you. I'm telling your story, so I'm glad we jumped into it already with Bob Bondurant and the Bondurant School of Driving. How'd you get started? I know you and Lynn went to high school together, and you were building cars as a teenager. In Spring Valley, San Diego County.

my neighbor bought Burl Bay in the Okatoolewells Cafe and that was just turning into an off-road mega. Nobody had buggies yet. And I went out there, well, come on out to the Okinawels with me. It was great. I loved the desert, but I didn't like walking. You couldn't take a car anywhere. So I went, I came home,

my grandma gives me a 49 straight-aid packard. Wow. Took the body off of it. This motor is this long and four-sill over the front wheel. We cut the frame, shortening it, it fell over on the front, like a wheelbarrow. This isn't going to work real good. So we shortened it, put the seats in the gas thing, and the hall that me and Mike Tacoma,

he was upcoming in Tacoma wheels and frames and trailers. And you couldn't drive down the beach at all. He just gets stuck. So I went to the rec yard and bought a big, for core with a rod sticking out to block, a V8, Osomboil overhead valve engine, one of them 900-pound guys, chained it in the back.

solve a problem. Just added some weight. Yeah. We ran around. I did that for probably about three trips. And everybody says, hey, there's some sand dunes over at Superstitions over there. And that's, I said, let's run over there. It's about 25 miles.

Sure. Well, I'd never been in sand dunes. You know, they go up and they drop off. They go up and they drop off. The other way, it's up and smooth, up and smooth. I just know I need some speed. And I look at it like the house there, going up this one dune, all air, the dune just dropped off.

And it goes to see him through the air, comes down and it goes, bam, and it breaks in four spots. How lessons were learned. And the seat fell off backwards in the roller bar. The motor fell off that way, and the center landed. And we all looked at it and tried to figure out what to do. We took the battery out of it and left it. And never found it ever in 40, 50 years.

I've gone by that same spot and it's under a sand dune somewhere. Disappeared. Yeah. So then I said, Bill, a buggy and auto shop. And that's when me and Lynn ran into each other. And that's when they still had auto shop kids. Yeah. You've never heard that phrase before put together.

Auto shop was a class. in high school where you got to work with your hands and build stuff. And the hour before that, we had metal shop. So we could build the bracket, take it over to Auto Shop and weld it on. So Johnny has spent a lot of years racing in the desert and has inhaled an awful lot of dust. And like you folks who love the sound of my voice, which is all dust and tequila, Johnny's got a little COPD that he's dealing with today. So he's apologized.

He's going to cough a few times. and I'm just, I'm delighted you're here, and I'm delighted you're making some time for slow Baja. Well, thank you very much. So we're going to have a cough here and there, and we're going to, you know, I'm sipping a little coffee with some Fortaleza repisado. That's what's keeping my voice smooth this morning. So you built a buggy. You built a buggy. Lynn was the grade below you, as I understand.

No, he was, we were both seeing. You're the same grade. I was back of grade. You're back of grade. All right. And so. So I go out. And I'm working at the bowling alley right there in Castro

and Lynn's building street racing headers for a living. Street racing was in it. There was no off-road racing yet. And so we got running around. I finally, come on, you got to go out to Glam us. So I go out to Glam us and see the big sand dunes. And I went, whoa, and it was just all kinds of Volkswagen pans running around.

The leaders took the body off and driving them. around as I took Lynn out there and it was a slingshot buggy where the root wheels were in front of you and you could just pop a wheelie and go forever and Lynn me just me and him drunk and just playing in the sand dunes and you know I got a tubing bender and a flame table he's like to build a two wheeler frame for this and there we go yeah that led to a few things so that that that buggy that first one you built, it was the wheelie king. He said you could ride a wheelie.

You could pop that thing and just go all day. And everybody was looking at you. When you'd get up in the wind would stop you. And everybody was looking at you like, what? What's with this guy? Just goofing off, you know. Just goofing off. Just goofing off.

So then I wanted a bigger motor, and I put a big turbocharged board and stroked Corvair on it for the hill climbs. It would just blow the Volkswagen gearbox part. And so I put a Corvair gearbox in it and had axles made out to Volkswagen suspension. So I've been improving, improving, improving. And I can dump the clutch of 7,000, I heard anything. Wow. And just burn up the hill.

So when off-road racing starts, I know how to do this. And so that's what I was going to ask you. At what year were you in high school? What year did you graduate? 62. And it's an assumption that you graduate. I'm just saying that. Yeah.

So 62, the first off-road race, five years away. Yeah. So you've got five years to train, goofing off in the desert, building tube frame vehicles, getting

Corvairs and what? How did you approach that first race? It was a, my boss at Johnny Jones in action on our parts ran the 67,000,

and I kind of helped him and stuff. Cindy comes back and he says, offroad racing is going to take off. He says, I'm going to put on the Brigo

Rough 100 at Oakon 2Ls. We'll go from Okay 2Ls, Salt and Sea, Superstations, and Bath. And I said, okay, that sounds cool. Well, so now, you know, it's three glasses. Four-cylinder, six-cylinder, and eight-silter. Whatever you had, you got in that line, and then that was your starting number.

We're keeping it simple. So it was a $15 entry fee. And I won it, won a thousand dollars. And I went, whoa, wait a minute. Now, what is this stuff, you know? So I built a legal Nora frame with that $1,000 that was a roll cage. It just not one bar behind you, you know, and ran the $68,000, same running gear, everything. And it was like cheating.

$1,600 bull's wagons just came out. So they were all going down the highway at 60 miles an hour. And 100 miles an hour was only 4,000 on the tag. Wow. I could cruise right to 120. Wow. And I see the straw broncos and I just blow right by them. And they're going, what is this buggy doing?

And so for you, it was basically a study in lightweight. You figured out that lighter is faster. So you got to, in those days, they were building stuff that were basically tanks. It was like your 49 Packard from your grandma. Yeah. It's like they're building tanks to beat up the desert. But you figured out, hey, if you do something that's lightweight, lower horsepower number makes it faster. You were able to do 120, which was trophy truck territory.

You know, and it's made it long and low. Long and low. And everybody else was shortening them, a bullswing, like 88 inches for Myers-Manks. So I was lengthening them. Interesting. I was 104 or something like that right off of the bat. Where did you go mentally to slow down enough to win? You know, you get Parnelli Jones.

Okay, legendary driver. He's won Indy. But it took him a long time to slow down enough to not break what he had to win in Baja. I didn't have the $68,000 was a $250 entry fee. and they gave you free Chevron white pump gasoline at every checkpoint. So you needed no pit crew.

Okay. The only thing you had to have was gas. So my buddy helped me build the car, and we just packed a little few little parts that we could in the thing. A bead breaker to break the bead down in an inner tube and a boot for the rear tire. Didn't even have a spare anywhere down. Because you couldn't get anything down. There's no road.

Right. And so just trying not to hurt the car. If I break the car, there's no radio to come get me. You know, there's nothing. He just like, ah, your history until a farmer comes by. And so that took the edge way off. And I think also it helped. It was my old sandbuggy motor, and I had wrapped the exhaust pipe going to the turbo with tinfoil.

to hold the heat. I'm not six miles out in and I blow a little hole in it. And my turbo pressure went from 10 down to four. And just, it was like putting the governor on me. So slower became faster because you didn't break. We're racing with the automobile club map. Explain that. Just explain that.

So you're, you got the AAA map and you're trying to race and, and, He's looking, going this way, and I knew from just looking at it, I had never been the Encinano before, that I wanted to stay in the ocean all the way to Elisario. Then we're going to go inland. Well, eight miles out of Encinata, it was the road to Bufador, the blowhole, the paved road there. I hit that sucker at about 90 and take off the blowhole. Taking the scenic route, folks, taking the scenic route.

And going along and all of a sudden. I got red lights and blue lights and shit coming, kept running me down. I looked down and I'm going about 120. I go, holy shit. You're meeting the local constable. Yes. And they pull up beside me and he goes,

no, signora, this is the way, this way. Turns around, turns around. I followed him back at 120 right into the intersection and on my way. Yeah. And it was like, okay. So a hundred plus career victories? 112?

112? I think the Parker 400, I've won it 15 times. The Ball 1,000, 15 times. Barstow 250s and the 400s and Baja 500s and San Felipe B.50s all add up in there. That's astonishing. But the record I'm most proud of is I won the Baja one. thousand eight times and never got out of the seat of the car so you drove the whole time you you know i mean didn't even get out yeah you didn't get out didn't even get out of the seat

you know throw throw too dragast and go and some of them are single-seaters we're going to take a minute right there and let that sink in we're going to take a break holy toledo eight times and never got out of the car in the baha 1000 how many hours was that how many hours exactly how How many hours was that? 24 to 27. And then me and Bobby Farrow teamed up the next year and knocked it down to 1645, beat the bikes by 45 minutes. And nobody could believe it.

We both raced for Sam Master. And Bobby Farrell was by far the fastest guy. But he would always get in the dust and crash. He had no patience to wait until he could go. And so Scott McKenzie and Donna Annette's, okay, John, you start. We started a rear number in class one. So when I get to the front, we know where everybody is. Because there's still no radios.

So once you're the lead car on the road, you know you're cool if you're the last one to start. You've passed everybody ahead of you. Yeah, and so I got out of Los Angeles, put Bobby in, and I said, the car is perfect. Don't screw it up. And he goes, really? He says, nobody in front of me. bat. Well, do you need a break?

Are you good to go? I'm all right. He never gets out of the car, folks. We're right back. We're right back with Johnny Johnson at Chenet Legacy Lodge. It's a beautiful sunny morning here. We've got the breeze blowing, having a good time. I've got a little fortaleza in my coffee.

And Johnny, tell me about Bobby Farrow. He's a guy that's like disappeared. He's a legend. He was fast as F. Had a skiing accident. And where did he go? He had a skiing accident. And it's got a plate in his head right after like 75 or 6.

We're somewhere in there. And then he's back running spring cars now. Wow. I saw him last Nora 1000 over there, and we bullshitted and talk. And then we have the Mexican government put a Hall of Fame plaques in the ground for all the overall winters. Right. So he showed up for that, so we take our picture over there. Here at Slow Baja, we can't wait to drive our old land cruisers out of the border.

And when we go, we'll be going with Baja Bound Insurance. Their website's fast and easy to use. Check them out at BajaBound.com. That's Bajaubound.com, serving Mexico travelers since 1994. What was like being with Parneli Jones? He's an Henri little bastard. I got a Parneli story that you won't believe. Let's go.

So tell me Parnelli Jones stories. I'm driving, me and Bob Gordon, Parnelli Jones, the BFG Blazer. And then school vessels got the other one. Him and our car are going to run class two. So we took the seat up and put a big toolbox in. We're going to run class one so we don't have to race each other. And it's the same thing again. Let me go first, and I'm not going to hurt the car.

I get, I mean, this thing, The problem was only a 33-inch tire. And it had 600-some horse fire. And if you jerked a four-barrel at 100 miles an hour, the rear wheels start spending. You know, if you weren't smooth. And so it was like, I was coming out of the corner, and I'd drift this way, and I'd drift this way.

And there was about three drifts, and I'd go straight down the road. And then he got closer to Trinidad. Oh, man, I did a perfect two. just two. He says, I'm getting this. You know,

I'm getting the slide of this thing. And pull into the Beafogoodish Pit Valley Trinidad. And that was only 58 miles, I think. And Parneli Jones comes over, takes the net down, drops it, reaches it, and grabs me by the neck,

and starts shaking me. He says, I need your full attention. I said, you got it. You got it. You got my full attention, buddy. Yeah. And he goes, John, you have cord showing all the way around both of your tires. Put it in drive and quit having so much fun.

I knew exactly what he was talking about. You know? And he says, you got to go 72 miles. It's the same. Believe me now. Yeah. And I said, okay, okay. left there and I get San Felipe.

I see him walking around the car and he comes over to me and he smiles and he goes, you listen to me. He says, yeah. Wow. I don't want to be out to changing tires. I only got one spare. I've burned two of them up. So let's talk about that again, getting back to respect for people who did,

who are true top level craftsmen in your field, in your craft and he did it on pavement at Indy. He didn't stock car, sprint cars. I think an off-road racer like you could drive anything else. You could drive anything on a pavement and be fine. Once you get a practice lapse in. Oh, yeah, yeah. Exactly.

You could drive anything. Bond Run School taught us that. is that I went to bond rent school for the main purpose. I lay it into a corner on the payment. Where do I just fly off? I don't know that in my brain. Or do I just go out into the desert? Where does it just get?

And I'm terrified of that. And the last day... I was terrified of something. Coming around turn six there, at serious point, I would just lay it in there too hard and get on the gas. and burn rubber all the way around the turn.

The big sweeper. The big sweeper. The big sweeper slide. I did that about three times. Instructor, but somebody said, you know, that means you got to stop the next lap. And he goes, you know, that's not the fastest way around that turn. I says, I know, but I'm trying to get rid of my fear of where I'm going to fly off the road.

Because all there was was grass there. If I came off the road, I was just going to go out into a mowed grass. And he goes, oh, well, go knock your lights up then. Well, hey, and what I was trying to say is, I think, this is my opinion, I think you could do anything Sterling Moss could do. But I don't know if Sterling Moss could come into the desert and race off road. I think that, I think that what you guys did, and I think it took Parnelli a long effing time to just have enough respect for how demanding the desert is.

I asked Parneli. He says, Parneli, why don't you just slow down 5% and nobody can beat you? He goes, that's no fun. Well, I mean, that's the great answer. You know, okay, that's not why I'm here, you know. But then he did, and the car's got a little better,

and he got not ripping the rear tires off, big only, and so it was good, But he, where was that going with that point? You're telling me about Parnellian just not having the, not having the patience for the desert. And I believe in the old days you had to be a mechanic. For sure. You had to know how to fix that wheel. Because there's nobody else around.

Right. You know, nobody going to come get you. We had cards about this big. It was a white card, yellow card, and a red card. and you're in a filth pin and you wrote on it. White was, I'm broke down, but I'm going to get going. These are stuck cards. Yeah.

These are the famed stuck cards that you handed to somebody who passed you to turn in. They had to. They had to take it or they'd be disqualified. And this was the system of communication in the old days where you'd hand a card to somebody and say, this is where I'm broke down. And then the yellow one was, I'm broke down, but I'm going to need a tow out. I can't get out on my own, you know. And then the red one was a medical emergency.

Jesus, imagine that kind of system. You're handing off a card and you got a medical emergency. When's somebody going to come for that? My wife, she has a driving suit that would be worth a million dollars if we could find it today. But she's riding in the thousand with me. She goes, oh, there's a friend of mine. She just writes it on her driving suit. And shit, on the highway, they were just cars stacked up.

Probably 50 them all blew up before they ever get the Camelow. They're not used to going down the highway. And then, she drew a line, Chuck one Camelow. Then put all these cars, drew a line, El Azario. On down, Saninez. The whole history of the 1,000 on her five. Driving suit. On her driving suit.

When all the way down that one started about El Arcahor. on this side but now we're getting fewer cars bro they're running and she gets down there score communication board was blank they had ham radios that were trying to get through that really weren't getting through that the ham radios were at each checkpoint and that's how they were going to stuck stubs were going to get relayed but the atmospheres or whatever it wasn't happening and somebody says, Linda, have you seen Bobby, my friend? She goes, oh, let me see.

What was his number? And she looked down and she goes, oh yeah, he's just right at El Zarrio, broke down. And about 50 women see this, and they mobbed it. And it was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, we had to put it on in the line. Yeah. To asking questions where the car was.

Time. One question in time, please. And it was like, holy shit, nobody's got a record like this. And finally, I said, wait a minute, I got a better idea. Let's go to the car and take off your driving suit and put on your clothes. And we'll hang a driving suit on the wall on the board. And so people can come without her having to interpret. Yeah. Getting grabbed.

And that worked wonderful. the next day the driving suit was gone. I wonder where that is. You brought up George Plimpton, and I'd love to get into that, and I think we'll be working towards a wrap-up here, but that must have been absolutely something. So you race your first off-road race in 68.

You did the Nora in 68. So that's the second year, and by then it's wide world of sports, it's big time, in it. Well, I started out with a silver spoon. I win the $68,000. Had to drive the goddamn race car home on the race course with cylinders puffing oil and shit. Never thought I was going to get the car home. Mickey Thompson loaned me $100 for gas to come home on. And I tell my wife, I says, let's go run the Mn for a hundred in Vegas, just see how we do.

We didn't even have a spare tire. No shocks, no spindles, no nothing. This is our Corvair buggy unloaded off the trailer and win the thing overall. Win $10,000 again. Oh, the first one, paid $10,000. Jesus. It's $68. Big money.

That's a house. Yeah. You could buy a house. Oh, yeah. And then so three months later, I backed up with the MN for 100 overall win, and that was $10,000. So I built a pre-runner to come learn Mexico, still the automobile club map, and I won $69,000. So it was like, oh, okay, I won $30,000 in one year.

I was making $6,000 working. I was buying my own house, building my buggy, I had a camper on my truck and a trailer. No problem, all in $6,000. So to get $30,000, you know, it was like. like, whoa, I think time to look serious into this. Hey, can you talk a little bit about it? I think you told me as we were just having a little fortileza in the beginning here before we got taping about your wife and about, did you say 45 Baja victories and 35 she was with you

or 45 victories and 35? Probably ran around 50 and we won 40 to 45. And she's navigating for you. She's in the car with you. Or just help her. There was no GPS, no course. she would look at ribbons and stuff. Can you tell me a little bit about the prep you did,

I think it involved tape and Vaseline and a few other things you were telling me about before we started rolling here? Well, any woman that seriously wants to go off-road racing got to tape up her boobs. You put her t-shirt on and good old duct tape. Tie them suckers up, put another shirt on, put your driving suit on, and everybody just thinks you're flat.

That's before there were sports bras. Yeah, right. There was no sports bra. You know, and any part that was going to chafe in a single-seater, I'd take a towel and fold it six times and put her under my seatbelt and tighten it up to keep the seatbelt from cutting. Yeah. Yeah. Or you were going too slow. You know, as soon as it gets rough and everybody starts whining, and they all slow down.

Tricks of the trade. Malcolm Smith. I was complaining about Barstow at one section around. just terrible. I hated that section. And he goes, no, John, you should love that section because everybody else hates it. That's when you just blew right on through them. And I remembered that for 50 years.

So you got towels, you've got Vaseline for chafing parts. What other tricks in the trade? If it's in a truck, you need to wear a hard sole shoes so that it didn't get hot. So the floor got hot. The floor get hot from the headers and the engine. Um, never change gears shift while going through a silt bed. Just stay on it. If you open the clutch up, it gets that talcum in there and their clutch is gone.

We're, we're getting tips right here, folks. Yeah. That one's not well known. Never shift in a silt bed. Yeah. Well, you mentioned a legend Malcolm Smith. Um, motorcycle racer, extraordinaire, moved to car. cars, 173 with Bud Felt Camp.

What do you have to say about Malcolm? Oh, I love the guy. We get along great. I mean, it just sad for me to see him. He's got like Parkinson's or something now. And, God, I went into the dealership a couple of years ago, and his son is an identical looking to him. I'm identical, and I'm going,

are you taking anti-aging pills? Yeah, how about Bud Felkamp? You got anything nice to tell me about Bud Felkamp? Don't know him that well. All right. He's been around the sport a long time, race with Malcolm. Yeah. So let me ask you about your friends.

Who do you see you've been around this sport and around this desert around Baja for a long time? Tell him we've got a couple of friends you've made. Oh, just here I wind up 10 or 15 every time I walk in, you know, friends. At the Chenet Lodge. Yeah. Yeah. People were asking about you last night. They thought you'd gone to the States. Yeah.

They were wondering where you were. Yeah, because I'm not using sick. Yeah. Well, Johnny, it's been a damn fun time getting to know you a little bit, talking to you. Well, here's a good story you'll love. In 68, after San Ignacio, you've got all these lagoons, or you can take the mountain. and it's an hour longer to take the mountain route. But you're not going to get lost.

Or stuck. Stuck. Or stuck in the mud. So I go, well, I never been to Baja, so I'm going to take the mountain route. Well, then, tell me, it's the siltiest damn spot. I've ever made Shepala look like a piece of cake. And I'm plowing through silt, and all of a sudden I go off the creek and hit the other side

and it goes boom and the front end lands there and the motor lands on the bank and both rear wheels were sitting there in the air to spin it and here's a 3,000 pound dead weight no suspension car

we look at that we got a you got a a regular pumper jack get out jacked they're all the way in the sand They got out, took the spare tire off, and jacked it all the way in the silk. And I'm going, we're looking, me and Paul Swob, we're looking at each other.

What do we do now? We couldn't even wiggle it, not even a rock. And also then he goes, and we look up in here, three horsemen all got a crown of beer drinking. The cowboy hats on just watching us. and they're gone we don't speak any Spanish and they all laughed and went around the front through us a lariat

and put it over the shock tower and they yank the yanked just hard enough that the motor fell into the canyon and then I could drive got sideways and got out of there are you kidding me? This is the I haven't seen a

person or a house in 150 miles you know, and all of a sudden, here's three cowboys sitting right there. Crazy. Hey, one of the things I've always been fascinated about is your experience with George Plimpton. Again, he's a legend already for being the every man doing these every man things. Right. And for however, whatever it came to him to do a thing on racing, George Plimpton behind the wheel.

He's in Monaco. He's in England. He's hobnobbing with Jackie Stewart. Yeah. Frickin royalty who's leaving a helicopter. Yeah, riding in a helicopter to the race with him, you know. And then he gets over to La Mesa, California, or Spring Valley and sees you and your wife in your humble garage. And it was a beautiful.

Well, I'm off to Bahá now. I'm going to be my ride. And it was a beautiful contrast of what it's like to race at the highest level. of Formula One and then you. We go to O. Two Wells there where I'm, or run around. This is where he goes, I'm going to get my driving lessons. And then we run around a little bit and then I let him drive and he runs around a little bit.

And he's just all stoked because he didn't expect it to have much power. And I don't know if you know okay, two wells are not out in the desert. Not at all. But it's got one big, huge sand. hill that's hard and then over here there was a little sand spit coming down and I'd run up there

and they had to put the cameras there and I came down at like 50 miles an hour down this little narrow sand spit and they went whoa look at that so then they go to my garage and then we go to Baja oh then we did the pre-run

they built Gil George Funco built a duplicate looking car mine that had a camera mount four inch square tubing off the front and both sides because there were 16 millimeter projectors. Crazy. And we stayed the whole day at Shepala Filman, and the cameraman would be out in front and

George would be driving across the dry leg, you know, and with a big cloud behind you, you know, it looked really good. And that's where the side pictures came too. And what did that, what did that do for you? I mean, to have George Plimpton in your car. I didn't realize that he was that big of a deal at that time. He was kind of a big deal. Yeah.

He was kind of a big deal, Johnny. But, yeah. I think he just chose you for a beautiful wife. Yeah. Well, no. You know why they chose me? They didn't want the special to be a Chevrolet special or a Ford special. Okay.

And I had just won the thousand three years in a row. and a buggy. It's a good bet. You're a good bet. So, yeah, this was a good bet. And so then they picked up Parnelli and all them on the team. We had four cars in case we broke that. They would continue the special.

Yeah. Amazing stuff. Well, let's wrap it up. How do you explain Baja to people? You got to go slow. You got to slow down. It takes two weeks to get here to slow down. you're running around trying to fix everything on your house in two weeks.

No, it's not a, it'll get done. Mignon or doesn't mean tomorrow. And then you can start enjoying it. You heard it here first, folks. You heard it here first. You heard it here first. Let me get the fortaleys off my tongue. You heard it here first.

Johnny Johnson says, how do you explain Baja to people? You got to slow down. We're going to leave it right there. Thank you, Johnny. That is awesome. My pleasure. Wow. I hope you enjoyed that. Johnny Johnson, under a palapa and Persebu at the Chenet Legacy Lodge, 112 career off-road racing victories. He was at the 1968, Norah Mexican 1000, featured on ABC Wide World of Sports with George Plimpton.

Come on, come on. Well, we're at the Norah Mexican 1000 right now. in the slow Baja safari class. This is the best, mostest, funnest, happiest race on earth, and we are the happiest class in that race, and I've got some folks to thank for that. Baja Baja Baja Baja Baja Bona Bona. Tquila Fortaleza. If you can't find tequila fortaleza at your local retailers, it's because I am pouring it all right now in Mexico. Thank you, Billy. Thank you, Guillermo. Nomad Wheels, new sponsor, so stoked to have some nomad.

501s on the truck. They look great. Check them out. Nomad wheels. Benchmark maps. They're back. That's right. I've got a benchmark Road and Recreation Atlas. That's right. I've got the map in my lap. We may have it have a GPS on because we have to, but you know we've got that benchmark map in our lap. I'm not going to waste any more of your time. You know, I've got to tell you about Mary McGee's pal, Steve McQueen. Yeah, he loved Baja. You know what he said? He said, hey McGee, you got to get off

Pansy Road Racer and get out to the desert with me. Yeah, that's what he said if you listen to the podcast. New Year's Eve, 1962, that's right. Now, Steve McQueen, he loved Baja, and he said, Baja's life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting.