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Although not formally educated, Johnson figured out what the paid engineers knew about chassis setups. In general, the car would be fastest with its weight lower than higher. It would also be offset to the left as much as possible and back toward the center of the car rather than at the ends.
"In the late 1960s, I had cars that were offset, motors moved back in them, wheels that were moved forward or backward depending on where I was running. Many, many things that I was doing were an advantage. Moving the wheels underneath the car to the left, widening the car out. There were many things that would help a car handle better."
"In the early 70s [with Cale Yarborough driving] I did an Oldsmobile that I moved the wheels on, moved the motor back, moved everything to the left side. Moved the wheels further to the left side and to the front. It kept the front end down where it wouldn't lift up. It's a tremendous advantage to get the car down on the racetrack."
Yet for all Johnson's acknowledged genius, the man many believe was the most creative of all time was Gary Nelson, who was crew chief for Bobby Allison's 1983 championship season and later for driver Kyle Petty and car owner Felix Sabates prior to become Winston Cup Director in 1992. Hiring Nelson may have been the best thing NASCAR ever did to clean up the sport.
"If you've got a 7-Eleven that's been held up a dozen times and you can't catch that crook, maybe the best thing you could do is go hire a crook that's held up a 7-Eleven a lot," said Larry McReynolds, a veteran crew chief who now does NASCAR television commentary for Fox. "I'm not saying Gary is a crook. He was a very innovative thinker. He always was trying to figure out ways to get around the rules, to work hard in the gray area. And he always did a pretty good job at it."
"The first thing they did was they went out and got the biggest cheater they could find," said former driver Buddy Baker of Nelson's hiring by NASCAR. "Gary Nelson was a very, very sharp person." More importantly, "He knows how to catch these guys, and if they do enough, he'll get "em,"
"Gary spent probably 50 percent of his time trying to figure out how to circumvent the system and 50 percent of the time doing it the right way," said Sabates. "Gary was a genius with the bodies. He wasn't too good with the engines, because that wasn't his forte. Gary did a lot of creative things with our bodies. We showed up one time at Talladega with a car that was one-third Pontiac, one-third Oldsmobile and one-third Chevy. . . We went to Talladega and kicked everybody's butt until we got involved in a wreck and Kyle broke his leg."
During his tenure, Nelson has earned high marks from competitors for leveling the playing field and bringing fairness to the application and enforcement of rules, something noticeably lacking in the sport's early days.
"When I got involved 13 years ago, there was a lot more cheating going on," Felix Sabates told me before the 2001 Daytona 500. "Everybody broke the rules. They didn't bend them, they broke them. I think it's a lot fairer today. I think the competition is more fair. I think they [NASCAR] are more fair with the teams."
"They do inspections out in the open now. You don't have to take anybody's word for it," added Yates. "You can observe. That's probably why there are so many cars running within a foot of each other. A lot of that you have to attribute to the fairness of the rules and keeping everybody straight."
"I think in the 1960s, 70s and 80s probably every race that was won was won with something that wasn't quite right," agreed former crew chief Larry McReynolds, echoing an oft-heard sentiment. "Today almost every race that is won is won with straight stuff."
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