Warren Johnson was winning races and championships on the IHRA mountain motor Pro Stock tour long before he became the legend he is today in the NHRA POWERade Pro Stock ranks. Johnson said this success in the big engine class provided a springboard to his career.

When Johnson came to race, he came to win – whether he was running his “Hulk” Camaro or the cars he drove for Georgia businessman Jerome Bradford. For that matter, his venerable Oldsmobile-bodied entries fit into that category.

Johnson accomplished two feats in one season back in 1979. Winning his first world championship was incredible, but his triumph halted the total domination of “General” Lee Edwards, the first two-time champion in the class.

Warren Johnson was winning races and championships on the IHRA mountain motor Pro Stock tour long before he became the legend he is today in the NHRA POWERade Pro Stock ranks. Johnson said this success in the big engine class provided a springboard to his career.

When Johnson came to race, he came to win – whether he was running his “Hulk” Camaro or the cars he drove for Georgia businessman Jerome Bradford. For that matter, his venerable Oldsmobile-bodied entries fit into that category.

Johnson accomplished two feats in one season back in 1979. Winning his first world championship was incredible, but his triumph halted the total domination of “General” Lee Edwards, the first two-time champion in the class.

“WJ” became the second two-time world champion despite running a limited schedule in 1980. In fact, in seasons in which he ran a full schedule he never finished lower than third place in the points.

The statistics credit Johnson with 25 IHRA finals and 14 victories.

Johnson said the early mountain motor cars were pretty crude in engineering and that’s what made winning such a remarkable feats. He added that sometimes just making it to the finish line under power was more of a challenge.

"The cars just weren't built for the high torque engines that were put in them," Johnson said. "The cars were flexible and they had the tendency to shake a lot. Knowing that, my primary objective in those days was to stay away from it. If you remained shake free and went from one end of the track to the other, you had about a 95% chance of winning the race. I concentrated more on clean runs than putting one of the bigger engines in it."

Johnson said that one car of his epitomized danger in the truest sense – the 1981 Monte Carlo that he drove to a third place finish in the points and five final rounds.

"Everybody should have driven it at least once," Johnson said. "That was absolutely a white-knuckle special because it had no downforce on it. We couldn't add spoiler to it because that would add lift. It black-tracked from one end of the track to the other.

"That would have been the ideal driver-training car but we would have lost 50% of the drivers in doing so. Nearly every one would have crashed. That was a real driver-training car. In hindsight, that car trained me for the Olds Hurst Cutlasses that we ran later."