Ronnie Johnson and late model superstar Tim McCreadie grew up together and both learned how to race from countless nights watching their fathers. They had to get seat time to perfect their craft but knew how to handle most situations from discussions during long rides home.
“When I started racing, he’d advise me but he never beat me up,” recalled Ronnie. “He’d been in every situation you could imagine and knew that in the end, you had to learn by being there.
“He wasn’t a man of many words and he never blew smoke to praise you. One of my best memories of him is when I won a qualifier at Syracuse one year and he climbed out of his car and ran all the way over to victory lane. When he got there, he just looked me in the eye and said, ‘Good job.’ His actions spoke louder than his words. That’s why guys who helped him are still helping me, because of the way he treated and appreciated us all.”
Another driver Johnson helped was Bobby Varin, who raced for years on a shoestring budget.
“Jack gave me a lot of advice and a lot of broken equipment I could fix and use,” Varin said. “But the most important thing he did was teach me to race the other guys the way they raced you. He was always out to win, but he was a gentleman. I might have gotten under his skin a couple of times, but he never blew me off when I went to talk with him after.”
Johnson’s career, which ended after a Fonda crash in 2009, saw him on Fonda’s famed Checkerboard Square a record 149 times.
“I must have run second to Jack a couple dozen times, but we never touched,” said Varin. “Now, Stewart (Friesen), who is today’s Jack Johnson, is at the top of his game and I probably hold the record for being second to him as well.”
Billy Decker still talks about having Jack Johnson as a mentor.
“My father raced, then a guy who owed him money traded him a six-cylinder Tiger car,” Decker said. “I won seven races my senior year in high school and that fall, Jack was deer hunting with my dad. He shot a deer on my grandfather’s hill, and I carried it out for him. He was impressed and that’s when he offered to help us out with a 320 modified.
“If you asked him a question, he would answer it pretty specifically. He was a good teacher and he even walked me around Fonda and told me where to be and what to be doing,” Decker continued. “I got lapped that first night but we kept visiting between races and with his input, we got going pretty good. Once we started running Albany-Saratoga, too, we’d stay at Jack’s house afterward, then use his shop to get ready for Fonda. That’s where our friendship really developed. Between Jack and JoJo, I got an education in that shop, but you had to be ready for some ribbing. There was a lot of busting going on there, but it was a fun atmosphere.”
It wasn’t long before Decker was in the big blocks and winning more than his share of races. When asked if that changed their dynamic, Decker laughed.
“Not at all. It was weird. We ran different tracks some nights and together others,” Decker said. “If so, we’d park next to each other and we got to the point that he was asking me questions when he saw that we had something figured out. It was sort of like Bob and Tim McCreadie helping each other. Jack and Bob had a great deal of respect for each other and traded info as well.”
When asked about Johnson’s reputation as a “tough guy,” Decker said, “He was when he was racing, but he didn’t like the dark when we were deer hunting. We took him out and told him to wait for daylight at the top of a ravine and deer would walk through there. Before we got to our stands, we heard a door close and went and found Jack in the truck. ‘If they’re not going to be there until daylight, then neither am I,’ he said and that was that.
“I think Jack was as good a driver as anybody I’ve seen. When he was at his peak, the series was deep in talent with more full-time drivers. There are more good cars today, because the equipment has changed, but those full-timers all made each other better and it was really hard to win. Modified racing is a lot like late models; people who land there tend to stay there and get a lot of experience. If you’re going to win a lot, you really have to be able to wheel a race car and Jack could.”
Johnson’s career stats show 428 wins at 35 speedways, including two Super DIRT Week scores on the Syracuse mile, along with four Super DIRT Series championships. But Fonda, where he was track champion 11 times, was where Jack’s star glowed the brightest.