It’s a few days before Thanksgiving 2021, and Johnny and Terry Gray are feeling grateful for many things: plans to expand their Gray Motorsports museum in Jupiter to house an ever-growing vintage car collection; the recent celebration of their fiftieth wedding anniversary; and perhaps most special of all, the arrival a few weeks earlier of their first great-grandchild, a boy named Brogan.
Life has been sweet for the couple, if not always as abundant as they are enjoying these days. Johnny and Terry share humble beginnings in Artesia, New Mexico, a town of fewer than 12,000 along the Pecos River, just 80 miles west of the Texas state line. They loved growing up there and were high school sweethearts, engaged by senior year.
In their part of the country, “Friday Night Lights” is a big deal. Like many boys in town, Johnny played football, but he always dabbled in go-carts and tinkered with engines. By his teenage years, football was taking a back seat.
“At 17 I started drag racing,” he says. “I raced a 1940 Willys pickup truck. I told my dad, ‘What I really want to do is work on cars and race them.’”
He never looked back, racing whenever he could find the time while growing the family business into a powerhouse entity that included oil, farming, and machining interests. He eventually drove professionally on the National Hot Rod Association’s Pro Stock and Funny Car circuits until retiring about 10 years ago.
Terry was always supportive of Johnny’s passion for the track and joined him in racing for a while, too, favoring the modified Porsche Cup cars. Their sons, Shane and Jonathan, also raced, and now grandsons Tanner and Taylor drive professionally for David Gilliland Racing, a team Johnny partners in.
“I’m just so lucky to have gotten to where I got. I’ve been blessed,” Johnny says. “I tell people, I can go anywhere in the world I want at any time, but what I want most of all is to watch my grandsons race.”
While he continues to buy and restore some of the country’s most iconic vehicles and cheer on his family of speedsters, he and Terry are also aiming for a new checkered flag: giving back to their adopted hometown of Jupiter, where they moved in 2011 after visiting during nitro car testing at Palm Beach International Raceway.
Since January 2021, the Grays have gifted Jupiter Medical Center a total of $7 million. The funds have enabled JMC to create a new Alzheimer’s and dementia program, purchase its third da Vinci Xi robotic surgical system to increase the hospital’s ability to perform precision surgery, and invest in its new $90 million Surgical Institute, slated to open in 2023.
For the Grays, the donation is reflective of the family’s philanthropic goals, which include financing homeless shelters in their original hometown of Artesia and Operation 300, a Port Salerno–based charity that assists the children of fallen military service personnel.
But the gift to Jupiter Medical Center is also deeply personal for Terry. Her father, Charlie Hammond, died of Alzheimer’s in 2020. She experienced the struggles family members face when they are caring for someone with an incurable disease that slowly robs them of their memories while also diminishing their physical health. Terry hopes JMC’s new program will help both family and professional caregivers learn how to support patients while also practicing self-care.
“There’s so much heartache in that disease and people need to know what you go through and how to take care of your loved ones and yourself,” she says.
Dr. Amit Rastogi, Jupiter Medical Center’s president and CEO, echoes Terry’s sentiments. “Alzheimer’s disease afflicts nearly 6 million Americans and is projected to affect 14 million Americans by 2060,” he explains. “Unfortunately, the disease often develops silently, decades prior to symptoms. The Grays’ gift is going to help us focus on the prevention and early detection of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia while serving as a much-needed resource for caregivers in our community. We expect to launch this new program at Jupiter Medical Center in 2022.”
Meanwhile, for all their successes in business and racing and their love for their new home in Jupiter, Johnny and Terry have never forgotten their racing roots.
That very first drag pickup, the 1940 Willys, now sits fully restored in a central place of honor in their car museum. Flanking it are dozens of automobiles for enthusiasts to swoon over, including a 1930 F37 Bugatti, a bright red 1968 Yenko Camaro RS (one of only two believed to exist), and the grand dame, a cream-colored 1933 Duesenberg convertible once owned by silent film star Marie Dressler. They’re parked hood to fender, evidence of the need for a bigger home.
“I’m terrible,” Johnny says, grinning as he sweeps his arm toward the gleaming vehicles filling the museum. “I just fall in love with all these cars and keep them.”