The stare told the story.

With one leg inside the car and the other out, as the 500-inch engine belted out a throaty rumble of horsepower, the younger driver stared at the older man, poring over the different components of the engine. Their look at one another was almost one of mutual regret, but still, they moved about the business at hand.

A one-minute warm-up complete, there would be only one hour left in the routine they have performed for over thirty years.

This scene was the last warm-up for the father/son Pro Stock team Allen Johnson and his father Roy, at least for this chapter of their lives.

An hour later, in a first-round loss, Johnson's Pro Stock career would end. Roy would no longer need to build any more of the complex powerplants. "It's been a day that we’ve been dreading, so we were doing our best to make the best out of it, and make sure we all had fun."

There were no second thoughts; it was a reality Johnson said his family had to realize. Without cubic dollars, the 500 cubic inch engines simply will not run. Unless those cubic dollars from the corporate world could find their way into his wallet, Johnson understood this is how it had to be.

"Someone asked me yesterday, what would make you come back?" Johnson conveyed. "If somebody tomorrow would bring me a 2 million dollar check, that’s all it would take."

Johnson isn't finished in drag racing, just this arena.

"I think we’re going to piddle around a little bit in racing and try to keep him, something to keep him semi-busy and keep his brain working," Johnson confirmed.

Johnson learned what he knows from Roy, first attending the drags as a kid and eventually working his way up to driving. In 2009, he gave the ultimate Christmas present to the man who in his eyes had been the ultimate dad - a DragPak Challenger, legal for Stock Eliminator.

The time is right to bring out the old Challenger and keep dad occupied.

"Keeping him young, healthy and keeping that brain working, that’s more important to me than anything," Johnson explained. "Just giving him something to do."

They also have a legal Factory Stock Showdown Mopar which Johnson will likely drive if they bring it out.

They'll likely race as a two-car team just like Johnson and Roy did when the kid fought tooth and nail with Deat Buckner for the 1979 IHRA Super Stock championship.

As much as Roy wanted to see his kid reach the doorslammer promised land, the kid wanted his father to experience it as well. Their goals have always been one in the same."

And, together they made it to Pro Stock. 

"I always wanted to race," Johnson said. "Didn’t think we’d ever get lucky enough to race Pros. So, you know, being able to do that has been a blessing for me to be able to give him that opportunity."

Exiting the race car Sunday for the final time, Johnson confirmed, was every bit as hard and necessary as he believed it would be.

"It’s a life-changing experience for us," Johnson said. "It’s what we’ve done. You know, Pam and I talked Sunday morning at breakfast, and it’s going to be a life-changing experience for both of us. Ever since she’s been with me, this is all we’ve done every day, you know, every weekend. That’s what we think about, that’s what we do. But you know, there are other challenges that have already come up, things we want to do, important things in life with grandkids and foster kids, and just stuff. You know, we’ve just got to replace this with that."

When Mopar offered Johnson a deal he had to walk away from two years ago, he fully expected what happened in Pomona to transpire at the end of 2015. A last-minute reprieve from Marathon Petroleum kept them in racing.

Johnson admits he just didn't have the fight left in him to beat the bushes for the big dollars needed to remain competitive.

"I just really didn’t go out and even look for a sponsor," Johnson said. "If somebody brought me a check today for 2 million dollars, we’d be un-retiring. So it somewhat started as a money issue, but now you know, there’s other things we really want to do and I think we can race maybe some of the Factory Showdown class or something and get our kicks on the racetrack in a much smaller way, and do some other things in life that we’re all wanting to do."

In a way, Johnson admits, this is life's way of pushing him and Roy back to a simpler time in life when towed the car with an open trailer and made sandwiches off the back of the truck.

"We’ll go back to a little of our roots and watch him enjoy that for a couple of three years or whatever and race five or six times a year and do a lot of other things that are important in life too," Johnson explained. "The reason I even started Pro Stock drag racing was for him. It was a dream of his all his life, and I was lucky in business and was able to give him that opportunity knowing that he would be good at it and we could get a sponsor, and it’s lasted a lot longer than I thought it would. It certainly has kept him young."