Slow Baja - Johnny Johnson Revisited

Episode Date: September 17, 2026

Here’s one of my favorite Slow Baja conversations --Johnny Johnson from February 2023, recorded at the Chenowth Legacy Lodge. Sadly, Johnson passed a few months after we made this recording. Please watch to the end for new interview footage.Johnny Johnson was one of the early champions in off-road racing. With 112 career victories and eight Baja 1000s, he proudly claims, “I never got out of the car!” Johnson was one of the very, very best in the dirt. Revered by his fellow racers for his fabrication and tuning skills, his friends say his humility and willingness to help anyone, anytime, 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 Grand Prix before jumping into Johnny’s sand buggy for the Baja 1000.Thanks to Carol Mears and Lynn Chenowth for arranging this Slow Baja conversation.Johnny Johnson was inducted into the Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2010. Need Baja Bound Insurance? Get a quote here: https://www.bajabound.com/quote/?r=fl...Support Slow Baja with a donation here: https://www.slowbaja.com/supportFollow Slow Baja on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/slowbaja/?hl=enJoin a Slow Baja Adventure here: https://www.slowbaja.com/adventuresCheck out our store for t-shirts, hats, stickers, and more:https://www.slowbaja.com/shopSlow Baja Theme Music: Los 300 Fried Neck Bones And Some Home Fries Used with permission. Listen here: • LOS 300 · Fried Neckbones And Some Home Frieshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx0SnUZB-pE&list=RDTx0SnUZB-pE&start_radio=1

Hey, this is Michael Emery. Thanks for tuning into the Slow Baja. This podcast is powered by Tequila Fortaleza, handmade in small batches and hands down my favorite tequila. Well, if you've been listening to me for a while, you know I'm an absolute minimalist when it comes to Baja travel. But the one thing I never leave home without is a good old paper map. And my favorite is the beautiful, and I mean beautiful, Baja Road and Recreation Atlas by benchmark maps.

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you'll find it all at longitudemaps.com or EVmaplink.com. You know I've long said it, ask your doctor if Baja's right for you. Well, if you've been hankering to get down to slow Baja with me, you got to check out the Adventures tab at slowbaha.com. All my trips are there from my famed fall vintage extravaganza to my winter and summer expeditions, which are open to trucks of any age. You know, on a Slow Baja expedition,

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I've done it. I've loved it. The pictures are over there at slowbaha.com slash adventures. And you can check them out. And if you've got some questions, let's talk. From the Shieldman recording booth at Slow Baja Studios, thanks for tuning in to today's Slow Baja podcast. My heaping dose of gratitude goes out to Bradley Wheels, USA, and 4x4 engineering services.

They are the Japanese giants who produce those fantastic wheels, which are on my HDJ80. They are the old school, the OGs, the authentic wheels for a rig of that period. And I'm pretty stoked to be rolling on them. And I was just at Cruiser Fest where I was there guest, and it was really cool to have my truck right out in front of the Land Cruiser Heritage Museum in Salt Lake City and meet all the cruiser nerds. So thanks, Bradley, Wheels, USA, and 4x4 Engineering Services. And you know, 4x4 engineering services has taken this step to start remanufacturing all these unobtainium land cruiser parts. So it's just like, you know, Mercedes-Benz producing parts for the 1955-Golwing 300 SL. Well, 4x4 engineering services is doing that for our rare.

unobtainium land cruiser parts. So pretty cool. Check them out. Anyways, today's show, since I am on the road, I'm on the road heading to Slee off road in Golden Colorado right after Cruiser Fest. I'm heading out to Colorado. I'm going to go to Slee off road. See them for some stuff for my truck. Swing out hitch, swing out rear bumper and new suspension. Can't wait to see Christo and Ben at Slee. And because I am on the road. I'm bringing you a podcast today out of the vault. It is one of my very, very favorites. Johnny Johnson from spring of 2023. He passed away just a couple months after we recorded this interview. And he's just a dude, you know. He's living an incredible life. Was a very, very successful racer, off-road Motorsports Hall of Famer, 112 first place victories.

And Johnny, you know, he just couldn't have been more gracious. Lynn Cheneth, his best buddy from high school and inseparable in their lives, went and rousted them from bed. And Johnny came down and had a beer as we were recording. And I think I had a little fortaleza in my coffee or I had two fortalases in my coffee or maybe even three fortalezes in my coffees. We were waiting for Johnny to arrive at the Chenet Lodge. Anyhow, without further ado, please enjoy one of my favorite podcast interviews ever. Johnny Johnson today 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 Bondarant 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 at 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

something 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 guess You know. Well, I'm going to get us introduced here. It's Slow Baja. We're at the beautiful Chenethe Legacy Lodge in Perseboo,

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 you doing?

You weren't going to meet me until 10 because they don't legally sell beer here at the Chenet Lodge until 10 a.m. But I'm glad you came in a little early. It's 9.15. Yeah, well, I have to stash in 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 Burrow Bay in the Okatiel Wells 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 Okedewells with me. It was great. I loved the desert, but I didn't like walking. You couldn't take a car anywhere. So I came home and my grandma gives me a 49 straight-eight 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. Oh, this isn't going to work real good. So we shortened it. put the seats in the gas thing, hauled at 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 got stuck. So I went to the rec yard and bought a big, for core, with a rod sticking out to block, a V8, Osomville overhead valve engine, about one of them 900-pound guys, changed it in the back. Ah, solved 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. And 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'm looking at like the house there, going up this one dune and 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. So I'd build a buggy in 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 damned to do that again. 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, and 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 seen. 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's 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. 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 rear wheels were in front of you, and you could just pop a wheelie and go forever. And just me and him drunk and just playing in the sand dunes.

And he goes, you know, I got a tubing bender and a flame table. and he's like to build a two-wheeler frame for this. And there we go. Yeah, that led to a few things. So that buggy, that first one you built, it was the Wheely 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 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'll hurt 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.

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 is 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 my boss, Johnny Jones at Action on Our Parts, ran the 67,000. And I kind of helped him. stuff. Cindy comes back and he says, off-road racing is going to take off.

He says, I'm going to put on the Brigo Rough 100 at Okie 2Ls. We'll go from Okie 2Ls, Salt and Sea, superstitions, and back. He says, okay, that sounds cool. Well, so now, you know, it's

three glasses, four-cylinder, six-cylinder, and eight-silder. 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 $1,000. And I went, whoa, wait a minute, you know, 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 bulls 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, you figured out that lighter is faster.

So you got to, in those days, they were building stuff that were, they 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, I made it long and low. Long and low. And everybody else was shortening them, a bullswing like 88 inches for Myers-Manks. Well, 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 and 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 a car, and we just packed a few little parts that we could in the thing. a bead breaker to break the bead down

and intertube 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 uh so just trying not to hurt the car if I break the car there's no radio is to come

come get me you know there's nothing you're 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 instant on, and I blow a little hole in it. And my turbo pressure went from 10 down to 4. And just, it was like putting the governor on me. You know, and... 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... Well, he's looking, going this way, and I knew from just looking at it, I had never been to Insanada before. But I wanted to stay in the ocean all the way to Elvario. Then we're going to go inland. Well, eight miles out of Insanada,

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, 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, signior, this is the way. this way, this way. It 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 at 15 times. It's the bottom of 1,000, 15 times. Barstow 250s and the 400s and BHA 500s and San Felipe B50s all add up in there. That's astonishing. But the record I'm most proud of is I won the Baja 1,000 eight times and never got out of the seat of the car.

So you drove the whole time. You changed navigators? Yeah, you didn't get out. Didn't even get out of the seat. you know throw a hair gas and go and some of them are single-sitters 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 Baja 1,000 how many hours was that? How many hours exactly 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 get to wait until he could go. And so Scott McKenzie and Donna Hernandez was, okay, John, you start.

And we started a rear number in class one. So when I get to the front, we know where everybody is. and because there's still no radios you know so when 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 you know and he goes really there's nobody in front of me you bet well do you need a break or are you good to go no 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's Legacy

Lodge. It's a beautiful sunny morning here. We've got the breeze blowing, having a good time. I've got a little fortilaza 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. It's got a plate in his head right after like 75 or six. We're somewhere in there. And then he's back running in 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 could take our picture over there. Here it's Little Baja, we can't wait to drive our old land cruiser south of the border. 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 Bajabound.com, serving Mexico travelers since 1994. Hey, big thanks to those of you who've contributed to our Baja baseball project.

You know, we launched our gear deliveries on my winter expedition. Michael and Matthew from Barbers for Baja, we're along for the ride, and we got to deliver that critically needed baseball gear up and down the peninsula. It was really, truly amazing. All right, well, please help us continue this vital work. Make your tax-deductible donate. at the Barbers for Baja. Click, barbers for Baja.org,

click the Baseball in Baja link. And I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I really do. It is so amazingly gratifying to be able to give these kids this chance to keep playing this sport. Keep them on the field. Keep them out of trouble. Please check it out.

Baseball in Baja link at barbers for Baja.org. Thank you. I want to tell you about these new Rocky Talky radios that I absolutely love. Heavy duty, beautifully made, easy to program, easy to use. We had 28 people, 15 trucks on the Slow Baja Winter Expedition.

You can hand these radios to anybody from a 14-year-old kid to an 80-year-old and they'll know how to use it. They are that well designed. One charge lasted the entire week. We are never out of range. I happen to upgrade to the accessory whip antenna for my radio and for my sweeps radio, the Donovan Brothers,

we were never out of contact. I can't say it strongly enough. Rocky Tokey radios, rockytockey.com. Check them out. Slow Baja approved. What was like being with Parnelli Jones? He's an Henri little bastard. I got a Parnelly story that you won't believe.

Let's go. Tell me Parnelly Jones stories. I'm driving. Me and Bob Gordon, Parnelly Jones is a BFG Blazer. And then sco 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 and some horsepower. And if you jerked the Ford. barrel and a hundred miles an hour, the rear wheels start spent, you know, if you weren't smooth. And so it was like, I was coming out of corn,

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, and I, oh, man, I did a perfect two. There's 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 there's only 58 miles, I think. And Parnelli 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. Wow, dude. 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 to San Felipe 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 practice laps, you like to do.

Exactly. You could drive anything. Bond-Duran School taught us that, is that I went to Bond around school for the main purpose. I lay it into a corner on the pavement. Or do I just fly off. I don't know that in my brain. Where 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 Sir's 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 an instructor, What somebody said? I mean, you got to stop the next laugh. 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 out then. Well, hey, and what I was trying to say is, I think, 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 Parnelli, I said, Parnelli, why 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 cars got a little better, and he got not ripping the rear tires off, the big olean. 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 felt pen 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 have. handed to somebody who passed you to turn in it. And they had to. They had to take it or they'd be as qualified.

And this is 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. And then the red one was a medical emergency. Jesus, imagine that kind of system.

You're handing off a card and we 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 and she goes, oh, there's a friend of mine. She just writes it on her driving suit. 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 a, so she drew a line, Chuck 1, Camelow. Then put all these cars, drew a line, El Azario. On down, Senanez. The whole history of the 1,000 on her five. Driving suit. On her driving suit. Well, all the way down on that one started about Al Arcoor on this side. But now we're getting fewer cars, bro, than running.

And she gets down there and 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 somebody says Lynn Linda have you seen Bobby my friend she goes oh let me see

what was these number and she looks down and she goes oh yeah he's just right at al azario broke down and uh about 50 women see this and they mobbed and it was like whoa whoa whoa we had to put it on in the line yeah asking questions where the one at a 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 man I got a better idea go over there, the car and take off your driving suit and put it in your clothes and will hang the driving suit on the wall on the board. So people can come without her having to, without, without her having to interpret?

Yeah, I'm getting grabbed, man. And that worked wonderful. The next day the driving suit was gone. I wonder where that is. Yeah. You brought up George Plympton, and I'd love to. 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 and you're in it well i started out like with a silver spooner i'm uh i win the 68 000 had to drive the goddamn race car home on the race course with cylinders buffing oil and shit never thought I was going to get the car home and uh Mickey Thompson loaned me a hundred dollars for gas to come home on and I tell my wife I says let's go run them in 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.

I went $10,000 again. Oh, the first one, paid $10,000. Jesus. It's 68. That's a house. Yeah. You could buy a house. Oh, yeah.

And then, so three months later, I backed up with the men for a hundred overall win. And that was $10,000. So I built a pre-runner to come learn Mexico, still the automobile club, ma'am. And I won the $69,000. So it was like, oh, okay, I went. 30,000 on 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, 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 fortaleza 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. Yeah, right. Any part that was going to chafe in a single-seater, I'd take a towel and fold it six times and put it 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.

That 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've 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. Because the floor got hot. So the floor get hot from the headers and the engine. Never change gears shift while going through a silk bed. Just stay on it. If you open the clutch up, it gets that talcum in there and their clutch is gone.

We're getting tips right here, folks. That one's not well known. Never shifted a siltbed. Yeah. Well, you mentioned a legend Malcolm Smith. Motorcycle racer, extraordinaire, moved to cars 173 with Budfeld Camp. What do you have to say about Malcolm? Oh, I love the guy.

We get along great. I mean, I 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 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 Felcamp? 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 them about 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. 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. 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 route. And that's an hour longer, take the mountain route. But you're not going to get lost. Or stuck.

Stuck. We're 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 Chapala look like a piece of cake. And I'm plowing through silt, and also I go off a creek bit 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. Here's a 3,000 pound dead weight, no suspension car.

We look at them, we got a, got a regular bumper jack, get out, jacked it all the way in the sand. They got out, took the spare tire off, and jacked it all the way in the sill. And I'm going, we're looking at. me and Paul Swobber 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 and here's three horsemen all got a crohn of beer drinking. The cowboy hats on just watching this. And they're gone, and we don't speak any Spanish.

And they all laugh. He went around the front through us a lariat and put it over the shock tower. And they yanked, the yanked me 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? But right, 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 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 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 and your humble garage. He goes, well, I'm off to Bahá now where 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 all the people. We go to over to Wells there, 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 well or 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 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 Funcoe, built a duplicate-looking car to mine that had a camera mount 4-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 it was a big cloud behind you, you know. It looked really good. And that's where the side pictures came too. And 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. Oh, 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 a thousand three years in a row in 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. 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. Mnior 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 fortaleas 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's awesome. My pleasure. Wait a second. Say that again. Malcolm Smith, the great. He gets motion signals.

in cars. That's crazy. And I had him by 10 minutes in on starting time because your numbers, you looked at your numbers and it told you where you started. So, where does, I caught him about 50 miles out of La Paz. He got back by when I was changing distributor. And I go like this to him, I go, and he goes, right back at me. And so we slowed down to about 85. There's nobody within three and a half hours behind us. Judy Smith came in. It was dark almost and got third in class one.

Wow. She solo did. But this smile on my face in this picture, it's really hard to see. How long did you go with that rear tire in that condition? Well, there wasn't a real tire. 25 miles.

25 miles on the rim. Yeah, and it was just like taking it out of high gear putting it in second. 6,000 was like 45 miles an hour. Just, ah, where does the Volkswagen blow up? You know what I mean? I could just go to 7,000 really. There's no load on it,

but I tried braking to load the motor a little, and it slid the rim. So I did that, and I, I find, my brain at 24 hours could not compute. How to make 20, you know, the Malcolm couldn't make 10 minutes up on me. So I said, I'll just do the best I. can. Can you show me that? But we got some guests here coming to coming over to say hello. I just want to, I just want to introduce a friend of mine. Let me see that picture. Look at that smile. Holy Toledo.

Bud Felkamp was waiting that's right at the exact finish line with a stopwatch and he sees me and he goes click. He goes, that means I won a minute and 24 seconds. I'm not a drift this way and there's about three drifts and I'd go straight down the road and then he got closer to Trinidad and oh man I did a perfect two two he says I'm getting this you know I'm getting the slide of this thing and I pull into the BF Goodish Pit Valley Trinidad and there's only 58 miles I think and Parnelly 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. 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've got to go 72 miles to San Felipe now. Yeah. And I says, okay, okay.

I 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. What I'm getting to, Johnny, is you could, I think, 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 Parnellia long effing time, to just have enough respect for how demanding the desert is. I asked Parnellia. I said, Parnelli, why just slow down 5%? And nobody can beat you. He goes, that's no fun. Well, I knew 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, and Big Oly, and so it was good, but he, where was they going with that point? You're telling me about Parnellian, just not having, not having patience for the desert. And I believe in the old days you had to be in 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 felt pen and you wrote on it. White, white was, I'm broke down, but I'm going to get going. These are stuck cards. Yeah. These are the famed stuck cards. Yeah.

These are the famed stuck cards that you handed to somebody who passed you. And they had to. They had to take it or they'd be as qualified. 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 toe out. I can't get out of my own. And then the red one was the air emergency, medical emergency.

Jesus, imagine that kind of system. You're handing off a card and you got a medical emergency. That's when's somebody gonna 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 and she goes, oh, there's a friend of mine

and she just writes it on her driving suit. On the highway, they were just cars stacked up. Probably 50 of them all blew up before they ever get the Camelieu. They're not used to going down the highway. highway and then a so she drew a line, Chuck one Camelow and put all these cars

drew a line El Osario and on down Sanchez and the whole history of the 1,000 on her driving suit. When all the way down that one started about El Arcoa or on this side but now we're getting fewer cars

running and she gets down there and gets down there score communication board was blank. They had the 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 stuckstubs were going to get relayed.

But the atmospheres or whatever. Never happened. It wasn't happening. Somebody says, Linda, have you seen Bobby, my friend? She goes, let me see. What was these number? And she looked down and she goes, oh yeah, he's just right at Al Zario broke down.

And about 50 women see this. And they mobbed her. And it was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, well, we had to put it all in the line on the line. Yeah. To asking questions where the car was. One at a 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 it in your clothes and we'll hang the driver suit on the wall on the board. And so people can come without her having to act 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. Hang on for a second, Johnny.

We're going to get back to your wife and her driving suit in 30 seconds. We're driving home together and we're going, life cannot be this simple. You know, we got a schedule there. I've got to have three race cars done every six weeks, you know, and then your worst nightmare, the guy comes to test the car and rolls at testing

and leaves you up all night. Leaves you up all night to fix it and make it right for him to race it again. Yeah, so finally we just took all the fiberglass clean off it before you go test this. But, uh, well, salute us, amigo. So I wind up, uh, me and Donnie, he bought a boat, and we took off to Oax.

I got all the way down to Zubatneo, and I got a guy blue his cam chain or something on a little diesel. And nobody, mechanics at all were just scared to look at it. And I said, I was, I'm just mechanical. And I took the cover off and got some parts. And it was giving me 35 by, bucks and out of mad money down there.

It was great. So I missed going with Donnie and my friends down through Panama. I said, I'll be there in a week. Well, she had to come, her case in the game. I didn't get to go. So I had to come back up here and I stayed in bail of Loretto, Port Escondito area. And then I wound up buying a house at Honolito,

which is just two miles over the hill before Loretto. And stayed there eight years. Well, I had to sell the Volka, said, but it goes to shit if you're not on it. How do you explain Baja to people? You gotta go slow. You gotta slow down. Just that Ignacio.

I mean, I stopped him, said, are you all right? Yeah. And he said, yeah, I get emotions. And I'm going across these dry lake beds, and there's only two tire tracks in front of me, is Parnelli and Larry Minor. I'm the third car on the road. And on a sudden, I'm not paying attention,

but the tire tracks aren't there. And I'm running about 80. And I look out here, oh shit, I see water on both sides. And it's foggy. You can't see any stars. You can't see any mountains. And I get slowed down to about 65 and it just goes underwater, the road.

And I'm spinning. I'm spinning. I'm down in setting gear about 6,000, I'm about four miles, about four miles an hour. Speed voting. I make a complete loop. And all I saw was water. Had not a clue which way to go.

Foggy, water all 360 degrees. And I'm going, and I'm alone in a CLC value. You know, it's like, you know, anybody you can tell, no radio. And all of a... How many hours into it were you? Huh. 20.

Yeah, so you're half out of your mind anyway. Yeah, and also as I'm going along, he goes, and the front wheels can't push a little bit. And I turned, and it would slide and pushing the front wheels. And all of a sudden, I said, I said, I'm in the groove. And then the rear end kept sliding, slide, and sliding, and all of a sudden, they backed off. went and then back off and it got in the groove.

And I said, I can't see it, I'm in all water. But I says, I'm in the road. You're a slot car racing. And I gotta stop and take my drinking water and wash my eyes out. That salt water is like 100 times saltier than any ocean water. You know, because it just dries up and goes out all the time.

And I go, okay, I can see it. I'll put it in set in gear and I'm Dup Dutt Dut Dut Dut Dut Dut Duh I'm moving And I go along with the sprays about this high Off the front tires And uh I'll send shit

There's my tire tracks I came out the same way I went in Brilliant I'm I mean he's he's pretty Legendary driver in the 80s 90s What do you have to... I got him.

He's first ride with modern motors. Oh, yeah? Tell me about that a little bit. But what should I ask him? What do you want to say? What should people know about Ivan that they don't know? He, not being as good a mechanic, cannot stand to be in second place. He just runs the shlivin and shit out of the car until he's first.

That's a Parnelli Jones syndrome. Yeah. And that's why he did so good in the 500. He won the 500, probably 15 times. 17. 17. He's only won the Baja 1,000. Three or four.

Three times. Three times. I was going to ask him about that. That's it right there. You said it. It's a long distance. Sympathy for the vehicle. Yeah.

It made me think of it. Tell me about what it's like to be in the off-road motorsports Hall of Fame, Johnny. It's. This is one for Barbara Rainey. Oh, yeah. Hi, Barbara. It's just a big thrill. You couldn't just be a good driver.

You had to donate something to the sport, like make products or get other people into the sport. You know, a lot of people, you know, won races and never made it in, like Mark Stolp. You know, but now I see they're letting, it's opened up a little more. But back then, Lynn, I, I, nominated Lynn for the Hall of Fame, and it took the third year to get him in. So you were legendary for helping people.

Yeah. And I made off-road partners. Gear reduction adapters for old Volkswagen gear reduction boxes. If you look at the modern motor single-seater up there, the yellow one, if you look at the clutch pedal, it says Johnny Johnson on it, blue, and I made a clutch assembly where the cable didn't go down the middle of the car. Because there's no hydraulic shit. We didn't have hydraulic clutches and stuff.

Do you ever think you'd be a Hall of Famer when you were in high school with Lynn? Making sandbuggies and going to the desert? You'd still be hanging out 50, 60 years later? Yeah, that's where we go. 60 years. Yeah, we've been since high school. That's amazing. All right.

Well, thanks for making some time for Slow Baja, Amigo. Well, I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Johnny Johnson. Wow, he lived a life. What an incredible guy, incredible racer. And, you know, I'm just so touched that he was rolled out of bed by his buddy, Lynn, cracked a beer and came down to sit with me and film an interview. And I really, really love that interview. Can't say it sincerely enough.

And I know that Lynn has watched a lot. and that's how Lynn kind of keeps Johnny's memory and Johnny's voice alive. I see it playing down at the Chenet Legacy Lodge, and it just warms my heart. You know, going back to 68 and the George Plimpton at the wheel, I don't know if there's anybody, any race are more famous in the day than Formula One race or Jackie Stewart, and that Plimpton went right from being with Jackie in, you know, riding his helicopter in Europe in Monaco, And then comes over to humble La Mesa, California and sits down in Johnny's garage and learns all about Johnny building a buggy. And that's the thing that, you know, racing in those days, they were guys like Johnny.

They were guys like Ivan Stewart, you know, string and fence working for a living and then working on stuff at night. It wasn't utterly professionalized in big shops and multimillion dollar builds. It was a guy in his garage doing something and then his own fortitude and skills and luck on race day, carrying him through. And Johnny Johnson, 112 career victories. He had a lot of luck, but he had an awful lot of skill. Ivan Stewart said he had the best backside in the business and sorting out a car and feeling what was going on. All right, well, if you like what I'm doing, if you like me getting out and meeting people where they are and recording these stories, that does take money. or it takes time and time is money or something like that.

So drop a darn taco in the tank. I'm tired of telling you about it. Just get out there, drop a darn taco in the tank. You can do it by going to slowbaha.coms, clicking on the donation link and drop a tray of tacos in there. I'll send you a card. I'll send you a ask your doctor if Baja is right for you, bumper sticker, and you'll help me continue to do this work,

which I truly love and I hope you enjoy. listening to these recordings. Okay, well, I'm going to sign off now and get on the road or get down the road, but I'm going to tell you about Mary McGee, you know, she also passed away not long after I recorded that second interview with her, but she was truly special, fast-tracked into the off-road Motorsports Hall of Fame as well. And she had a pal, Steve McQueen, yeah, that's right, that Steve McQueen, Steve McQueen, the famed movie actor. Steve said, hey, Mary, you got to get down to Baja with me. You got to get down and get dirty, right on those dirt bikes with me and my guys. And Mary said, come on, Steve. He said, you know, Mary? Baja's life. Anything that happens before

or after, it's just waiting. You know, people always ask me, what's the best modification that I've ever made to slow Baja? Without a doubt, it's my Shielman seats. You know, Toby at Shield Man USA could not be easier to work with. He recommended a vario F for me and a Vero F XXL for my navigator, Ted. His Ted's kind of a big guy. And Toby was absolutely right. The seats are great and they fit both of us perfectly. And let me tell you, after driving around Baja for over a year on these seats,

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to Cameloo. Del Rosario to Sananaez. Those were individual races. And when you got, I always thought when I get Sanchez, I've gone that far, I'm going to make it all the way. Yeah. If something stupid hadn't broke by now, it's not going to break unless it's me. Well, you didn't break.