Many of today's top drag racers had humble beginnings. 

Nothing says humble like having your race vehicle air-freighted to the race in a crate, and parked underneath a flatbed trailer. 

Pro Stock Motorcycle veteran Steve Johnson has yet to find anyone who can match his initial foray into the world of major league drag racing with the NHRA. 

An admitted street racer, Johnson knew he needed to find a safer diversion to his need for speed, and believed the NHRA platform was the perfect opportunity for him to become a professional drag racing. 

In a racing world where the popular choice of race vehicle transportation was a Chaparral trailer of even, a box truck or on the high end, an 18-wheeler. Johnson wasn't at the time living in the world of high cotton. 

Circumstances dictated which direction Johnson went in as 399 races ago; he made his debut at the 1987 NHRA Summernationals in Englishtown, NJ. 

"I had a ride with somebody to go from California to New Jersey, and he canceled on me at the last minute," Johnson explained. "And then, I’m like, ‘Well we were already entered, do we want to go? We’re all set."

If one spends any time at all with Johnson, a racer who clearly races with success on limited means, they'll know in the college of hard knocks he majored in resourcefulness. 

The ever-entertaining Johnson gathered his friends to enable him in his bid to become what was likely a first for NHRA championship drag racing. 

"We built a crate and shipped it," Johnson said, matter-of-factly, cracking a smile.  

Friends beware if you buddy up with Johnson, be not surprised if the Californian now transplanted in Alabama, asks for a favor outside of the norm. 

"A buddy of mine worked at BMW, and they used a shipper, and we air freighted it," Johnson admitted. "It was 680 pounds, wooden crate, and they dumped it off in Englishtown."

When the shipper delivered the prized cargo, they found a prominent place to park it. Let's just say Johnson's fledgling team had waterfront accommodations. 

"About 30 years ago the pond area wasn’t as fancy," Johnson recalled. "It wasn’t even paved over there. So there was a flatbed trailer in the pit area for the motorcycles. We didn’t get treated real good in the beginning. But I guess we were lucky to be there."

Let's paint a picture, image the finely prepared 18-wheeler of the Budweiser King Kenny Bernstein, and 50 yards to the right there was Johnson and his wooden crate. 

"Well there was the flatbed trailer there, with my crate underneath it," Johnson said of his unique motorcycle utopia. "It was perfect; so when it rained, I was protected." 

To Johnson, he was in Heaven. To his better financed Pro Stock Motorcycle counterparts, it was as if the Beverly Hillbillies had taken up two-wheeled drag racing. 

"We did have a hotel," Johnson said, boastfully. "Saturday morning I came back and [the fellow racers] had taken sharpies and spray painted wheels on my crate to make it look like a trailer."

Johnson was honored with the gesture because he was just happy to be there.

"We were street racers, and people were dying, and it was dangerous," Johnson said. "And NHRA provided, not to be a suck up; but they provided an opportunity for us to keep our racing going along. And we loved it, so we got involved, and we were at the race, and we were at an NHRA National event racing Pro Stock. It’s like, ‘Wow."

"That’s what we talked about at the street races, how cool that would be."

In the same vein of what goes up must come down, Johnson employed the same resourcefulness to get his Suzuki home. 

Enter Paul LeSage, then the NHRA's official welder, and he brokered a deal for Johnson's Suzuki to hitch a ride back to California with Blaine and Alan Johnson. 

"So they literally put my motorcycle in their Top Fuel trailer on the stairs between the lounge, that’s the only place they had," Johnson revealed. "That’s how cool this sport is, and that’s how cool some of the owners are."

Johnson didn't have an abundance of cash to offer the Johnsons without it looking like a joke, so he instead brought in a measure of the barter system. 

"We drove our pickup truck to go get our motorcycle," Johnson explained. "I bought Everett (Blaine and Alan's Father) beer, cookies and potato chips.  I just didn’t want to show up empty-handed, you know. He was very appreciative."

Thirty years later, Johnson's team rolled through the gates at Route 66 Raceway with an 18-wheeler. Indeed, Johnson agrees it's been a long, strange trip.

And before you laugh too hard at Johnson's maiden voyage to major league drag racing, you might want to reserve the embarrassment to the Pro Stock Motorcycle racer who lost in the first round to him. He had a nice motorhome and an enclosed trailer.