From a NASCAR press release:
Eric Wilson, the No. 29 team’s jackman, is proud to have learned his craft at the knee of NASCAR Hall of Famer Junior Johnson. Johnson was a superlative driver and perhaps even more accomplished as a car owner and team leader. But he also was one of the best jackmen to ever work pit road.
Becoming a jackman happened by accident for Wilson, a 41-year-old Bethlehem, N.C., resident who, in 1995, was carrying tires for Johnson’s No. 11 Ford team and driver Brett Bodine. The crew chief, Mike Beam, departed mid-season and his jackman followed. Johnson sauntered into the shop one morning and beckoned Wilson outside.
Wilson recalls Johnson telling him, “’I’ll show you how to jack a race car.’ I guess it was because I was 25 and in shape. He told me to be a team leader. It really helped me. There was no way I was going to let that man down.” The team won the annual series pit crew championship later that season. Wilson continues to hold the fastest time for a jackman, set in 2008, during the NASCAR Sprint Pit Crew Challenge presented by Craftsman.
Johnson’s advice created not only a position expert but a teacher as well. Wilson, a native Texan who moved to the Hickory, N.C., area to race and later win a NASCAR Dash Series championship, hired on with Cal Wells Motorsports where he worked as a crew member and pit crew coach from 2001-06. He joined Michael Waltrip Motorsports in the same capacity the following year and later with Ray Evernham Motorsports.
