April 8, 1970 was quite possibly the darkest day in Junior Johnson's life. One of the most successful drivers and owners in the history of NASCAR stood solemnly in his Brushy Hollow, North Carolina race shop, contemplating a future he would have never imagined. The man who "discovered" drafting during practice for the 1960 Daytona 500 and went on to win the race in a Chevrolet despite a ten-mile-per-hour top speed disadvantage to the dominant Fords and Pontiacs; the man author Tom Wolfe had called "the last American hero;" and the former moonshine runner whose raw driving skill had bested every federal, state, and local lawman in Wilkes County, North Carolina had just announced that he was closing his shop and folding his race team due to a lack of financing. The announcement shocked the racing world. How could this be?

"It's just too expensive," Johnson said in his soft Carolina drawl. "We just don't have the funds."

The financial pinch for Johnson came as a result of the non-compete agreement between Ford, Chevy, and Dodge. The big three were the lifeblood of parts and engineering support for NASCAR race teams, and they had agreed to another multilateral withdrawal from stock car racing. While major corporate sponsorship money was rare and extraordinarily cheap in 1970, NASCAR had become a full-time, professional racing circuit that was very much driven by money. With the automakers gone, money was tight.

"When the manufacturers got out, NASCAR suffered a reeling blow," said Charlotte Motor Speedway President Humpy Wheeler. "It left the competitors with a bunch of soon-to-be-tired equipment, no money, and really caused the whole thing to reel hard for a couple of years."

Johnson was hit as hard as anyone, and made no bones about the challenge he faced.

"I wasn't racing for glory," Johnson said. "I was racing for money, and I don't mind admitting it. I wasn't going to spend money out of my pocket. I never had to depend on what I won racing and I wasn't going to start now."

Johnson knew of what he spoke. He grew up dirt poor in the hardscrabble Brushy Mountains of post-World War II western North Carolina. By 1960, he was earning one hundred thousand dollars a year as one of NASCAR's most successful drivers. It was a career that almost never came to be.

"One day my brother L. P. suggested I drive one of his cars in a fill-in race at North Wilkesboro Speedway," Johnson said. "I figured racing would be more exciting than plowing, so I stopped at the house to pick up my shoes and finished second in the first money race I'd ever been in."

But on April 8, 1970, there was no money. The automakers had gone away and what corporate sponsorship there was wasn't enough to make up the difference. Unless a major sponsor came calling with about seventy-five thousand dollars, Johnson was going back to chicken farming.

"I told my driver, Lee Roy Yarbrough, that if he found a ride to go ahead and take it," Johnson said.

Despite these dire warnings, Johnson did show up at his home track, North Wilkesboro Speedway, a week later for the four hundred-lap NASCAR race.

"'Quitting' was the wrong word," Johnson told reporters. "When you say that, it means you quit altogether. We were still looking for a sponsor, and the biggest reason I decided to run at Wilkesboro was to put an end to the story that I was quitting for good."

In fact, Johnson didn't quit. He continued to run his race team out of his own pocket.

At the same time that Johnson and every other NASCAR team was struggling to find money, the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company was facing a financial dilemma of a different sort. The federal government had passed a ban on tobacco advertising on television and the Winston-Salem, North Carolina, cigarette maker didn't know what to do with all the money it had been spending with the networks.

"R. J. Reynolds had been spending millions of dollars a year on television advertising," said seven-time NASCAR champion Richard Petty. "When the TV ban came in, they had all this money to spend and nowhere to spend it."

Johnson had been trying to get R. J. Reynolds interested in stock car racing for years. He was as good a businessman as he was a driver. He understood that the fans who filled the NASCAR grandstand every week were RJR's core customers.

"That's middle America up there," Petty said.

Very few people understood that in 1970. But it was something that the whole world would soon discover. And it would forever change the business and economics of NASCAR. With the financial help and advertising and marketing acumen of corporate America, NASCAR would grow over the next three decades from a small, regional sport barely heard of north of the Mason-Dixon Line or west of the Mississippi to a worldwide multimedia, multibillion-dollar operation that today is second only to the National Football League. And if there's anyone to thank for that success, it's Junior Johnson.

In the wake of the television-advertising ban, RJR went to Johnson and said that it was finally interested in sponsoring his race team. But in what was perhaps the most unselfish-and fortuitous-act in the history of NASCAR, Johnson, desperate to find sponsorship money for his race team, said no to the biggest sponsorship check that was ever offered to a car owner.

"Junior didn't need millions; he just needed enough to sponsor one car," Petty said. "In 1970, a good team could run on two hundred thousand dollars a year. Many teams ran on much less."

So instead of taking the money for his own team, Johnson told RJR executive Ralph Seagraves that he needed to think bigger than just Johnson's one-car team. He needed to think about sponsoring the entire series. And in 1971, RJR could do it for a fraction of what it had been spending on national television advertising.

"Junior's argument was, 'Why have just one car when you can have them all?'" Petty said.

It would turn out to be the most momentous business decision in the history of NASCAR.

"The advertising of tobacco products on radio and TV this year was worth two hundred thirty million to the networks," Chris Economaki wrote in his November 18, 1970, Editor's Notebook. "Federal law dictates that all such commercials end come December 31 this year. This means that these tobacco companies must find other ways to exploit their products. If racing knows how to treat the tobacco companies, there's no reason why a goodly portion of this money cannot be bled into our sport."

That's exactly what happened. In December 1970, the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company announced that it was going to sponsor the top tier of stock car racing, then known as the NASCAR Grand National Series, through a season-long point fund that would pay drivers one hundred thousand dollars. In exchange, the series would become The Winston Cup. NASCAR would never be the same.

What's important to note here is that the one hundred thousand dollars was just for the single-season point fund. Over the next decade, RJR would spend tens of millions more to sponsor individual races, renovate run-down racetracks, launch regional and national marketing and advertising campaigns, and pay ever-increasing purses, contingency funds, and bonuses to drivers, car owners, and racetracks. The impact was huge and immediate and started a ripple effect that continued for the next decade.

A week after RJR announced that it was funding the one hundred thousand dollar Winston Cup point fund, it said it would pay more than one and a half times that much for just one race. The company would be the title sponsor of the five hundred-mile event at Talladega, Alabama, which for the next thirty years would be known as The Winston 500. The sponsorship, at one hundred fifty thousand dollars, made it the richest stock car race in the world.

"The Winston 500 completes our sponsorship package for 1971 stock car racing and gets us deeply involved in this popular sport," RJR said in a press release. "We are very excited about starting our association with NASCAR and intend to work closely with them in making 1971 the best year ever for the sport of stock car racing."

That was an understatement. NASCAR Chairman Bill France put things in perspective by noting that with Winston's one hundred thousand dollar point fund, 1971 would be the richest season in the history of NASCAR, with prize money for the season expected to exceed three hundred fifty thousand dollars. Less than a decade later, it would be ten times that much.

"Our agreement with Winston calls for heavy advertising and promotional support on a nationwide scale, which will aid not only NASCAR racing, but all of stock car racing," France had said.

And it couldn't have come at a better time, especially with Detroit souring on NASCAR. In November 1970, Ford had announced that it was ending its multimillion-dollar auto racing programs. That was a significant blow. In 1967, Ford's racing budget, a portion of which went to NASCAR teams, peaked at twelve million dollars. By 1970, it had dwindled to just two million.

"For some years, Ford Motor Company devoted considerable money, manpower, and energy to the support and sponsorship of various auto racing activities in North America," Matthew S. McLaughlin, Ford's vice president for sales, said in a statement at the time. "We believed these efforts worthwhile as an aid to the promotion of both the sport and our products. However, we believe racing activities have served their purpose and propose now to concentrate our promotional efforts on direct merchandising and sale of our products through franchised dealers. Accordingly, effective immediately, we are withdrawing from all forms of motorsports competition except for a limited divisional and dealer support of drag and off-road racing."

"Everybody was going broke," Humpy Wheeler said. "Factory equipment was wearing out. It was really tough."

NASCAR had made significant strides financially since the days when Ned Jarrett wrote that two thousand-dollar overdraft. The Grand National division, NASCAR's top tier, paid out $1.8 million in 1969 and $2.5 million in 1970. In late 1970, before the announcement of the RJR sponsorship, the Grand National division was expected to pay out more than three million dollars in winnings and bonus money over a fifty-four-race season that including one 600-mile race, eleven 500-mile races, and four 400-mile races.

While the RJR money was welcome, what was more important was the legitimacy that major corporate backing gave NASCAR. It was no longer just some redneck sport populated by country bumpkins who ran mostly on half-mile ovals in small southern burgs that no one had ever heard of. It had the backing of one of the richest and most profitable corporations in the world. And that gave NASCAR a legitimacy it had never had before.

An excerpt from The 200-MPH Billboard, Motorbooks, ISBN-13 97807603282125. All rights reserved.