Johnny Cooper (born July 22, 1945), James Cooper (born August 18, 1947), and Tommy "Skeeter" Cooper (born August 27, 1956) were brothers who operated a garage in Ray City, Georgia, from the late sixties into the seventies and later. Their father, John T. Cooper, worked for the railroad as a welder, had a side garage, farmed, and was in charge of Studstill Construction. He also worked at Moody Air Force Base as a mechanic and parts manager. Their mother, Sarah Lucelle Merritt Cooper, was deaf and worked on the farm. The family experienced the loss of two brothers, Jerome and Danny Ray, and one sister, Betty Joyce, in car wrecks.
Johnny Cooper started as a racing fan, helping his brother-in-law, Earl Bristol, with his figure 8 car, and then Preston Driscoll with a '35 Chevrolet sportsman at the Thunderbowl Speedway. Johnny built a 1954 Ford to race at Pavo. He had a shop since he was 14, learning to weld and mechanic from his father. Johnny initially drove, including an O stock '55 Chevrolet at US 19 Dragway in the mid-sixties, where he set an NHRA O stock record. He later decided to leave circle tracks to Harvey Jones.
James Cooper began racing after returning from the military in 1968. He and Johnny started their shop and owned race cars. Skeeter Cooper attended his first race at I-75 Speedway when he was about 10 years old.
The first car Johnny and James had together was a '56 Chevrolet bought from Sonny Croft of Moultrie, which they rebuilt. They acquired a 454 Chevrolet engine in pieces from Lake City, Florida, for $200, assembled it, and raced. They ran big blocks until they were outlawed. The first car they built together was a 1962 Nova on a 1955 Chevrolet frame in the early seventies. Harvey Jones drove the Nova, a '68 Chevelle, and a '64 for them. They rolled the '68 Chevelle multiple times but repaired it. They later moved to managing weight and tube chassis, though they only owned one full-built chassis. They never owned a store-bought engine; Jack Patrick did the machine work, but they designed and built all their engines in their shop. They modified Chevrolet parts for big block engines.
They made their own racing fuel, using the fuel lab at Moody Air Force Base with the help of friends in the lab. Harvey Jones taught them about fuel, and they did their own head work in the shop. In 1979, they took two dirt cars and one asphalt car to Daytona. Harvey drove one dirt car at Volusia, and Don Williams drove the other dirt car and the asphalt car at Daytona. Don Williams qualified the asphalt car after Dale Earnhardt helped with a carburetor issue. Don Williams started 33rd in the Permatex 300. During the race, a drive shaft came through the right window of his car during a sixteen-car pile-up, hitting Don and leading to his death ten years later after a coma. Both dirt late model cars and the asphalt Permatex late model car were totaled.
They raced at various tracks, including Patton Speedway, Lake City Speedway, Columbia County, Jacksonville, Waycross, Brunswick, Telfair County Speedway, Dublin, Cordele, both tracks in Phenix City, Albany, 75 Speedway, Thunderbowl, Ocala, and Satsuma (Palatka, FL). They won 49 of 54 races at a dirt track south of Lake City, leading the track owner to offer them money to stay away. They also ran Hav-A-Tampa races, winning one at Lake City Speedway.
Drivers for the Cooper brothers included Tommy Smith, Eldon Yarbrough, Sam McQuagg, and Jimmy Murphy. Tommy Smith won 14 feature races and a championship at the Thunderbowl. Jimmy Murphy won 49 features for them, including a Hav-A-Tampa race. Their cars featured a "striped ass ape" logo, which started with a Wylie Coyote strangling the Road Runner. One of their cars was featured in a movie made at the Thunderbowl, driven by Harvey Jones, whose character was played by Dub Taylor.
The Cooper brothers stopped racing after their shop was robbed of $48,000 worth of equipment on December 22, 2002. James went into ministering in Alaska, and Johnny was nearing retirement and could not afford to restart. The last car they had, a Warrior design put together by Russell Brown, had only three races on it. They later took this car to a party for Jimmy Murphy, who was able to drive it briefly despite his illness.
This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.
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