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How Whiskey Runners Worked · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to you stuff you should know from house stuff
0:04
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
0:13
Speaker 1: Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and uh Dina
0:17
Speaker 1: the Dinosaur and Jerry's over there. That's Dinah Dna. Remember that. Yeah, man,
0:25
Speaker 1: that movie Blew Me Away. When I was over old,
0:28
Speaker 1: I was, oh, yeah, that's from the movie, wasn't it.
0:31
Speaker 1: I thought it was from a parody of the movie Park. Yeah,
0:34
Speaker 1: that's like the educational video they show. I just remember
0:37
Speaker 1: that first, Like, it was amazing when you saw that
0:40
Speaker 1: first shot of the dinosaurs and you know, like because
0:42
Speaker 1: you know that was all brand new, take it for
0:44
Speaker 1: granted out like crappy CG movie that's out today. It
0:48
Speaker 1: was like one of the greatest things anybody's ever done.
0:50
Speaker 1: It in Tony Great. I think they're rereleasing it to
0:51
Speaker 1: like that three D are they? Yeah, the original that
0:55
Speaker 1: has a lot to do with Bootleggers. Um, Chuck, we've
0:59
Speaker 1: talked to this before twice. Yeah, we have. Yeah, I
1:06
Speaker 1: think we kind of forged the circle. It already needs
1:10
Speaker 1: to be bigger. Um. Well, we did how Moonshine Works
1:13
Speaker 1: episode one of my all time Favorites tree. If you
1:15
Speaker 1: haven't heard of how Moonshine works episode, do your self
1:18
Speaker 1: a favorite. There's some primo sound design from Jerry. Um.
1:22
Speaker 1: We end up in a still you can believe it? Uh?
1:25
Speaker 1: And what was the other one that we did where
1:27
Speaker 1: we mentioned this too? Uh? Prohibition Yes, ye, yeah, which
1:32
Speaker 1: is another good one which is part of another circle,
1:35
Speaker 1: a tri part episode, prohibition addiction. And uh what was
1:43
Speaker 1: the other one, Oh, rehab. Yes, and everything is so
1:47
Speaker 1: interconnected here, it's all the circle is getting smaller, my friend.
1:51
Speaker 1: It's the's the tree of life, the tree of Life. Okay, so, um,
1:56
Speaker 1: what we're talking about is moonshining, Yes, bootlegging. I have
2:01
Speaker 1: moonshine at my desk right now. Yeah. We discussed just
2:04
Speaker 1: drinking it while we were doing this, and we opted
2:07
Speaker 1: not to because it's not right. We'd like to do
2:11
Speaker 1: things in one take these days, it's like seventeen. But yeah,
2:15
Speaker 1: I mentioned the fan sentis a moonshine and the thank
2:19
Speaker 1: you's one of the thank yous we said hello and thanks.
2:23
Speaker 1: I remember it's delicious, Yes, it is. Um And specifically
2:28
Speaker 1: one of the things we're talking about, um, that we
2:32
Speaker 1: just kind of covered a little bit and I think moonshine.
2:36
Speaker 1: I think it was moonshine. Um was that this really
2:39
Speaker 1: amazing thing. I'm not in the NASCAR. I'm not either.
2:44
Speaker 1: I had a spell you did, yeah, like one year
2:47
Speaker 1: and then it just went away. It is one of
2:50
Speaker 1: the world's biggest sports. Um popular popular wise u um.
2:56
Speaker 1: People love to see the cars go around in the circle,
3:00
Speaker 1: not always just in the circle. I'm not. That's true
3:03
Speaker 1: at the road races, that's true. Um. And I'm not
3:05
Speaker 1: into NASCAR, as I said, but I have a tremendous
3:08
Speaker 1: amount of respect for the sport because it was directly
3:12
Speaker 1: created by moonshiners, bootleggers running moonshine lad not you know,
3:20
Speaker 1: indirectly exactly. They literally met and founded the National Association
3:25
Speaker 1: for Stock Car Auto Racing. Like that's where NASCAR came from.
3:31
Speaker 1: One of the one of the pre eminent owners racers
3:35
Speaker 1: and then owners, Junior Johnson, did a year in jail
3:39
Speaker 1: for bootlegging. Yeah, Wilkes. He's from Wilkes County in North Carolina,
3:43
Speaker 1: which was like one of the hotbeds the bootlegging. And
3:48
Speaker 1: by no surprise, it is also North Carolinas, like the
3:51
Speaker 1: center of NASCAR it's not a coincidence. No, it's not.
3:55
Speaker 1: So let's talk about this this whole thing, Like where
3:58
Speaker 1: what were people bootlegging for? I mean, like, I know,
4:01
Speaker 1: it's kind of like if you want it done right,
4:03
Speaker 1: do it yourself. But when it comes to making booze,
4:06
Speaker 1: like there's a lot of really good booze out there,
4:08
Speaker 1: why not just spend the money. Well, this was happening
4:13
Speaker 1: in the rural South. A lot going on back then. Um,
4:16
Speaker 1: on the heels of the Great Depression hit the South
4:20
Speaker 1: really hard because um, there weren't factories to go to
4:24
Speaker 1: work too afterwards or during and the mills were shut down.
4:28
Speaker 1: The mills were basically the economic engine to the South. Yeah,
4:31
Speaker 1: so farming is drying up to a certain degree. There's
4:34
Speaker 1: prohibition going on. That's a big one. So it's basically
4:37
Speaker 1: prohibition and the Depression of the two big factors that
4:40
Speaker 1: led to rise. Right, So we need to Even after Prohibition,
4:44
Speaker 1: the South still had a lot of dry counties, and
4:46
Speaker 1: to this day still has dry counties. It is crazy,
4:50
Speaker 1: twelve like two thousand and there are dry counties. Was
4:53
Speaker 1: it two twelve or two and eleven? When Georgia voted
4:57
Speaker 1: or let cities vote to repeal the the Blue Law
5:01
Speaker 1: for Sunday Sunday sales. Like, just this year Georgia got
5:05
Speaker 1: Sunday sales. There's like a Mars Curiosity rover on the
5:09
Speaker 1: planet Mars taking pictures of a of us not buying
5:12
Speaker 1: beer on Sundays. It's crazy. It is crazy. Um. But yes,
5:16
Speaker 1: So even after prohibition gets repealed, a lot of southern
5:19
Speaker 1: counties were like, well, you know, you can't tell us
5:23
Speaker 1: what to do, Johnny Law. We're gonna we're gonna stay dry.
5:27
Speaker 1: And a lot of bootleggers were like, okay, well I
5:30
Speaker 1: can still sell to these counties. And it happened to
5:33
Speaker 1: have one Sweet Ride. I don't have a lot, but
5:37
Speaker 1: I got a Sweet Forward with a ambulance engine in it, right,
5:43
Speaker 1: and it goes really really fast. Cadillac ambulance engine. Yeah,
5:46
Speaker 1: that was one of the mods that they would do
5:48
Speaker 1: to make these things faster. So you needed this car
5:51
Speaker 1: not just to show off, but because if you were
5:53
Speaker 1: selling in Dry County, the federal government really couldn't have
5:57
Speaker 1: cared two bits whether you were not. Yeah. Most of
6:01
Speaker 1: the time, though, if you were smart at all, you
6:04
Speaker 1: weren't reporting these sales on your taxes. Yeah, I read
6:07
Speaker 1: that had more to do with it than anything I
6:09
Speaker 1: would was they didn't want to pay taxes. I mean,
6:12
Speaker 1: it had to do with prohibition all that stuff, but
6:14
Speaker 1: it was really like, you know what, we were making
6:16
Speaker 1: the stuff ourselves, selling it to people across county lines,
6:20
Speaker 1: like why should I give the federal government a piece
6:22
Speaker 1: of that? Well that that um, not just whiskey making
6:25
Speaker 1: or moonshining, but also the idea that you shouldn't be
6:29
Speaker 1: paying taxes on that predates the United States. I'm like,
6:33
Speaker 1: the Whiskey Rebellion was the that that actually came after
6:37
Speaker 1: the United States, but moonshining came before. But the whiskey
6:40
Speaker 1: Rebellion the first the one of the first things George
6:43
Speaker 1: Washington had to deal with was because of taxing corn liquor,
6:48
Speaker 1: which is it's an American tradition, don't tax our booze um.
6:54
Speaker 1: So all these factors add up to, uh, either it's
6:58
Speaker 1: your family business and you're maybe fifteen, but you've been
7:02
Speaker 1: driving the truck on the farm since you were eight,
7:05
Speaker 1: and the tractor so you're like in the South, it
7:07
Speaker 1: wasn't like, oh, you don't have a license yet. You know,
7:09
Speaker 1: we shouldn't let you behind the wheel of a car.
7:12
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, are you old enough to reach
7:13
Speaker 1: the pedals? Or we have wood blocks? Yeah, exactly like
7:18
Speaker 1: the kid in uh oh Brother Where Art? Though you
7:20
Speaker 1: didn't like that one right now, I like that? Okay,
7:22
Speaker 1: that kid and then all the wood blocks right in
7:24
Speaker 1: short round from Templar Doom Oh yeah, the good Indiana
7:28
Speaker 1: Jones movie or one of them? Yeah, one of two,
7:31
Speaker 1: one of three? Yeah, I would the fourth one right, yeah,
7:35
Speaker 1: I would put that third in the list, though, I
7:36
Speaker 1: would go Raiders, then Last Crusade, then Temple of Them
7:40
Speaker 1: and then I don't even count the last one. So um,
7:44
Speaker 1: Either you're in the family business and they're like this
7:47
Speaker 1: kid can drive or you can drive, and some other
7:50
Speaker 1: families like, hey that you know that Clark kid, he
7:53
Speaker 1: can get on it in that forward, let's get him
7:56
Speaker 1: to run the shine and so also, you got a
7:59
Speaker 1: job that pays you dough. But it's not just paying
8:03
Speaker 1: your dough. It's also extremely thrilling. Yeah, and a lot
8:06
Speaker 1: of bragging rights going on when you're out running cops.
8:09
Speaker 1: It's it's like the Dukes of Hazzard. Can we just
8:11
Speaker 1: go and say it? Yeah? It is. I mean you
8:12
Speaker 1: can't read this article without thinking bone Luke, Duke, Bone,
8:15
Speaker 1: Luke Duke. You know what's crazy is not onstead? I
8:18
Speaker 1: think of really how man? The whole time I was like,
8:20
Speaker 1: this is the Dukes of Hazzard. Were they moonshiners? No?
8:24
Speaker 1: But it was the same thing, like juicing up your car,
8:27
Speaker 1: beefing up the suspension and the engines so you can
8:29
Speaker 1: outrun the local cops and you know, you know all
8:32
Speaker 1: the back roads. All right, I don't want to give
8:34
Speaker 1: away too much, Okay. So, um, we've got the depression
8:38
Speaker 1: thing and unemployment in the South, and then we also
8:40
Speaker 1: have prohibition, and these things are coming together, and so
8:43
Speaker 1: all of a sudden you've got fourteen year olds who
8:46
Speaker 1: know how to operate cars out running cops and revenuers, right,
8:51
Speaker 1: the revenuers. So there was a revenuer named John Carter,
8:53
Speaker 1: and he became a great source of mars. Now okay,
8:58
Speaker 1: different John Carter. Uh. He became a great source from
9:03
Speaker 1: the laws side. He was one of the guys chasing
9:06
Speaker 1: these people, and he was the source for um that
9:09
Speaker 1: fourteen year old quote about how like by the time
9:14
Speaker 1: these kids are fourteen, not starting when fourteen they're driving
9:18
Speaker 1: by the time their fourteen. He said they could outraw
9:20
Speaker 1: any law man he knew, and he was one of
9:22
Speaker 1: the lawmen. Yeah. And so one of the ways they
9:25
Speaker 1: did it was, like you said, was by modifying uh
9:29
Speaker 1: stock cars, right, Like taking a Ford coupe and putting
9:33
Speaker 1: a Cadillac ambulance engine in it. Do it um, switching
9:38
Speaker 1: you know engines between makes. Right. So like apparently Chevy
9:43
Speaker 1: engines are easier to modify than forwards. So you might
9:46
Speaker 1: have a forward car with the Chevy engine, um, and
9:50
Speaker 1: they'd say that if you see it. Go to one
9:52
Speaker 1: of these auto shows today, some of these old twenties
9:55
Speaker 1: and thirties forwards will still have Chevy engines in them.
9:58
Speaker 1: Well that's where hot rods came from. To it's just nastcar,
10:00
Speaker 1: but hot rods and like that whole hot rod thing
10:03
Speaker 1: in the in the California in the sixties, straight out
10:06
Speaker 1: of bootlegging moonshine with cars. That's pretty cool. Um. So
10:13
Speaker 1: the revenuers I don't think we specified there. They were
10:15
Speaker 1: the tax guys, yeah, who came to collect and they
10:18
Speaker 1: were they were Feds, the Alcohol Tax Unit. Yeah, Like
10:21
Speaker 1: they were sending these guys in from like New Jersey
10:23
Speaker 1: and New York to these rural southern towns, and Bow
10:27
Speaker 1: and Luke were like, bring it on. Yeah, you don't
10:30
Speaker 1: know these roads like I know. I'm pal. You don't
10:32
Speaker 1: know these roads. You don't know your car like I
10:34
Speaker 1: know my car because I'm the one who modified it
10:37
Speaker 1: in all these crazy ways. I added the turbo charger.
10:42
Speaker 1: I brushed out the piston hole cylinder, the piston hole cylinder.
10:51
Speaker 1: Is that a common method, brushing the cylinder? I believe? So? Okay, Um,
10:56
Speaker 1: they would modify. They would built in custom switches. We
11:00
Speaker 1: could turn off your brake lights or your tail lights
11:02
Speaker 1: or both. That was a Clay call. It was a
11:07
Speaker 1: buddy of Junior Johnson. He did that. So what what
11:11
Speaker 1: happens is you're flying down the road behind one of
11:13
Speaker 1: these cars at night and let's say the tail lights
11:17
Speaker 1: completely go out and they can pull in a little
11:19
Speaker 1: you know, like side dirt road, or you're following them
11:22
Speaker 1: during the daytime and they're banking on a corner and
11:25
Speaker 1: they're hitting the brakes and the cop doesn't realize that,
11:28
Speaker 1: so he goes flying into the corner and then he
11:31
Speaker 1: smatches into something pretty smart. Yeah it's so basic though,
11:35
Speaker 1: you also need really really good shocks and struts, um.
11:40
Speaker 1: And the reason why is because the best thing to
11:42
Speaker 1: do is to not have to try to outrun the
11:44
Speaker 1: cops and just drive right past him and wave like
11:47
Speaker 1: you're just a law of Biden citizens, like I don't
11:49
Speaker 1: have five pounds of liquor in my trunk exactly, um.
11:52
Speaker 1: And that's the whole point of the shocks and struts.
11:54
Speaker 1: And also so when you do have to outrun them,
11:56
Speaker 1: your car is not just bottoming out on every divot,
12:00
Speaker 1: that's true. Um. And if you do get pulled over.
12:03
Speaker 1: Another early line of defense was false bottom trunks, um,
12:09
Speaker 1: hidden cargo panels, basically just places you could stash flicker.
12:15
Speaker 1: That's true. But ah, who wrote this? Was this the grabster? No,
12:20
Speaker 1: this was Jamie page Dton jp D uh. As jp
12:26
Speaker 1: D points out, cops would eventually get wise to all
12:29
Speaker 1: these things as well, and then it came down to
12:31
Speaker 1: what would lead to NASCAR, which is I can drive
12:34
Speaker 1: better than you, period. So that's like when the banjo
12:37
Speaker 1: music would start, exactly when the cop turned on the sir,
12:40
Speaker 1: right and like, I know all your tricks, but now
12:43
Speaker 1: the race is on. So um, you've got these local
12:47
Speaker 1: roads that are often very What is it thunder Road
12:50
Speaker 1: in North Georgia. You know there's a place there's a
12:54
Speaker 1: road called thunder Road, North Georgia, And I think Bob
12:57
Speaker 1: Mitchum was in a movie about it or something back
12:59
Speaker 1: in the day, really called thunder Road, I think. But anyway,
13:02
Speaker 1: it's like like a lot of people died, especially revenuers,
13:05
Speaker 1: because they didn't know like the curves. It was particularly dangerous.
13:08
Speaker 1: But those Moonshine boys like knew exactly what they were
13:11
Speaker 1: doing and could take these curves. Most of them. A
13:13
Speaker 1: lot of Moonshine runners died in their own cars on
13:17
Speaker 1: their own roads, just going too fast, too far, too hard.
13:21
Speaker 1: But if you were a revenue you're at a greater
13:23
Speaker 1: disadvantage because also you didn't know where to double back
13:26
Speaker 1: and hide out. Um. And there was a move that
13:29
Speaker 1: was created by Junior Johnson called Bootleggers turn, which we've
13:33
Speaker 1: all seen. It's where the car goes um one direction
13:37
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden it does a one eight,
13:39
Speaker 1: straightens out and drives back the other direction before the
13:41
Speaker 1: car that's chasing it can turn around. Bootleggers turn. I've
13:45
Speaker 1: never knew that. Yeah, Junior Johnson patented that one, and
13:48
Speaker 1: also later on would go on to um I wouldn't
13:53
Speaker 1: say an event, I guess discover the drafting, which if
13:58
Speaker 1: you don't know what drafting is and car racing, it's
14:00
Speaker 1: when and you can experience. This is very dangerous. You
14:03
Speaker 1: don't want to try this. But if you get behind
14:05
Speaker 1: like a big eighteen wheeler on the highway and you're
14:07
Speaker 1: close enough, it often feels like you don't have to
14:10
Speaker 1: hit the gas is hard. It's because you don't. You're
14:12
Speaker 1: being sucked up into the wind behind it, and it
14:15
Speaker 1: breaks the draft and essentially you're in a little vacuum
14:20
Speaker 1: getting right up on the car behind you. And in
14:23
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty I think at the Dayton of Junior, Johnson
14:28
Speaker 1: realized this by accident on a practice lap and apparently
14:33
Speaker 1: had an inferior car to the rest of the cars
14:35
Speaker 1: and won the race based on that technique. And then
14:38
Speaker 1: everyone was like, what's June you're doing. We gotta do
14:43
Speaker 1: it too, let's name it. So they named it drafting.
14:48
Speaker 1: That's weird, you, No, I guess drafting makes sense. It
14:51
Speaker 1: does now, But is that just because we know what
14:53
Speaker 1: it's called. No, it's like a draft, Yeah, like I
14:56
Speaker 1: gets you're right, there's a draft, you know what I mean? Yeah,
15:01
Speaker 1: all right, Junior Johnson hardoned too by Ronald Reagan. Yeah,
15:07
Speaker 1: because you said he got arrested for not actually bootlegging,
15:11
Speaker 1: but just for going to the still one night. Right now.
15:13
Speaker 1: He was caught at his daddy's still by John Carter himself.
15:19
Speaker 1: That's what. Yeah, when your father has a still in
15:22
Speaker 1: the woods, that's daddy, um. You. He was caught at
15:26
Speaker 1: his daddy's still, um by John Carter. And he did
15:30
Speaker 1: eleven months three days in prison. Um in North Carolina. No,
15:35
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Chillicothe, Ohio or Chilla Coathee Ohio. Um so,
15:41
Speaker 1: but he was caught in with Carolina. But apparently bootleggers
15:46
Speaker 1: and whiskey runners had this reputation of being so honest
15:51
Speaker 1: that when they were caught. His legend tells, when they
15:54
Speaker 1: were caught and sentenced, the judge would frequently let them
15:58
Speaker 1: leave um and just go home and be told when
16:02
Speaker 1: to meet the prison bus, like meet the prison bus
16:04
Speaker 1: March twenty one. And when the prison bus showed up
16:07
Speaker 1: like at that stop, the bootlegger would be sitting there
16:10
Speaker 1: waiting for the bus to take it to take them
16:12
Speaker 1: to prison. They were known to be that that uma
16:17
Speaker 1: despite their illegalities. Yeah, well that was I think one
16:21
Speaker 1: of the reasons why Tom Wolfe called the North Carolina
16:24
Speaker 1: Wilkes County specifically bootleggers the last the last American heroes
16:29
Speaker 1: because they were kind of I mean, they were against
16:33
Speaker 1: the law and they would like kill revenuers, but they
16:38
Speaker 1: were also very honest in their dealing when they were caught.
16:41
Speaker 1: Did he say, didn't you should point out there was
16:43
Speaker 1: a movie coming out about this. Yeah, there's a movie
16:45
Speaker 1: called Lawless, and it's based on a book called The
16:48
Speaker 1: Wettest County in the World. Yeah. I saw. The original
16:51
Speaker 1: name of the movie up until this year was Wettest County. Yeah,
16:54
Speaker 1: which I have to men's pretty bad. No, it's gotta
16:57
Speaker 1: be wettest county in the world, like the wettest County
16:59
Speaker 1: in the world. And it's about a county in Virginia.
17:02
Speaker 1: I can't remember which one. Um and the They changed
17:07
Speaker 1: the name to Lawless and Nick Cave wrote the script.
17:11
Speaker 1: He is awesome and like every way Um and Guy
17:14
Speaker 1: pierces in it. He plays the Treasury revenue guy. That's
17:17
Speaker 1: Nick Cave with a V. By the way, not in
17:19
Speaker 1: Nick Cage. Yeah, okay, Nick Cave of Bad Seeds Fame, Yeah, exactly.
17:24
Speaker 1: Um and shy La Buff to bring it full circle
17:27
Speaker 1: from Crystal Skulls. Yeah, I don't think we should bring
17:31
Speaker 1: things full circle of the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls. Right.
17:34
Speaker 1: You know that's two consecutive episodes where it just came
17:37
Speaker 1: up organically. Yeah, strange, but yeah, Lawless is coming out
17:41
Speaker 1: this month. The recording this the twenty nine I believe. Yeah.
17:45
Speaker 1: I can't wait because I was thinking, I think I
17:47
Speaker 1: told you this morning when I was reading this, I
17:49
Speaker 1: was like, man, why haven't they made a movie about this? Well,
17:52
Speaker 1: my friend, they have looking forward to it. Um, all right,
17:57
Speaker 1: so where are we world War two? Yeah? What's what?
18:00
Speaker 1: Why isn't this still going on? And by the way,
18:02
Speaker 1: this this article is not correct, said that they were well,
18:05
Speaker 1: they were running whiskey well into the seventies. Clay call
18:09
Speaker 1: who's Junior Johnson's bff forever, Um, he was doing it
18:14
Speaker 1: in the eighties really into the eighties. Yeah, And it
18:17
Speaker 1: was the um, the rise of the chicken farming, like
18:21
Speaker 1: mega chicken processing plants that converted all of these former
18:26
Speaker 1: corn liquor distillers into chicken farmers because it's it was
18:30
Speaker 1: just more lucrative, and they're like, well not, I'll raise
18:32
Speaker 1: chickens then. Interesting. But he was into the eighties. He
18:35
Speaker 1: said that one of his cars a an old New
18:38
Speaker 1: Yorker from the sixties that he said, um the writer
18:42
Speaker 1: of this hot Rod Magazine article called something that I
18:46
Speaker 1: like doctor a lawyer would would um use would drive.
18:49
Speaker 1: But it was like one of his prize possessions because
18:52
Speaker 1: that thing would just haul to He modified it. He
18:55
Speaker 1: said that he um their bullet holes in it from
18:58
Speaker 1: the eighties. So he was like real deal, seriously doing
19:02
Speaker 1: this into the eighties, because I mean his car got
19:04
Speaker 1: bullet holes in the nineteen eighties from bootlegging. When I
19:08
Speaker 1: was smoking the band it that was seventies. Yeah, but
19:10
Speaker 1: he wasn't. He was just he just couldn't drivetive. No.
19:15
Speaker 1: They were smuggling beer. I don't remember that. Yeah, of
19:18
Speaker 1: course that was what they were doing. Remember the big truck.
19:21
Speaker 1: I didn't know that full of course beer, illegal course beer. Yeah.
19:25
Speaker 1: Back then the course was only out west and they
19:28
Speaker 1: wanted some in Georgia. Oh, so they sent Smokey Uh
19:33
Speaker 1: Sarcana and Jerry Reid to get the truck load of
19:36
Speaker 1: course beer to bring it back in like twenty four
19:38
Speaker 1: hours or something. Yeah. Um, okay, So flash forward a
19:43
Speaker 1: bit um in the thirties, forties and fifties, I guess
19:46
Speaker 1: not forward. We're kind of right there in the middle. Um,
19:49
Speaker 1: there wasn't a lot going on entertainment wise in the
19:51
Speaker 1: rural South. Didn't have a movie theater, sometimes didn't have
19:54
Speaker 1: a mall, didn't have a lot to do. So they
19:58
Speaker 1: would clear out fields and make dirt track race tracks.
20:02
Speaker 1: Well farmers would, yeah, it make some cash off of it. Yeah,
20:04
Speaker 1: because sort of like Field of Dreams, except they would
20:06
Speaker 1: build a race track. You know, if you build it,
20:09
Speaker 1: they will come and like um Days of Thunder, except
20:13
Speaker 1: in a farm field. And dirt track was huge. I
20:17
Speaker 1: mean it's still big. People still race on dirt tracks.
20:19
Speaker 1: But Junior Johnson apparently said that he never got on
20:22
Speaker 1: pavement when he was bootlegging. He's like, you have a
20:25
Speaker 1: ten to one better odds of losing the cops on
20:29
Speaker 1: a dirt road because these cops, I mean, not only
20:32
Speaker 1: did they not know the roads in the South, they
20:34
Speaker 1: were not used to sliding around on dirt roads. And
20:36
Speaker 1: these guys are just like you know, professional uh drifters,
20:41
Speaker 1: not Tokyo drifters. Tokyo drifters, not hobo drifters. Um. So,
20:48
Speaker 1: all right, while this is going on, you've got these
20:50
Speaker 1: southern towns and farmers building these dirt tracks, making a
20:53
Speaker 1: little scratch but also kind of making a name for
20:56
Speaker 1: car racing, like this is kind of a new thing. Yeah,
21:00
Speaker 1: I mean, the Indie was around and all that, but
21:02
Speaker 1: these this it wasn't kind of big in the South.
21:04
Speaker 1: I don't think was it. When did that start of
21:06
Speaker 1: Formula one racing? I should say that was the earliest
21:09
Speaker 1: auto racing was like maybe or they were racing like
21:14
Speaker 1: Mercedes and stuff like that, but stock car racing was
21:19
Speaker 1: very much new to the South. Well it was, and
21:22
Speaker 1: then you know, eventually bootlegging dried up and these people realize,
21:27
Speaker 1: you know what in n they got together in Daytona, Florida,
21:31
Speaker 1: uh and said let's make this like a legit thing,
21:35
Speaker 1: Like we think there's money to be made here. You
21:38
Speaker 1: guys can drive really fast. These stock cars aren't that
21:41
Speaker 1: much money because back then it was stock car racing.
21:45
Speaker 1: Like that was the whole point was we want to
21:48
Speaker 1: have the fans identify with these people by driving a
21:51
Speaker 1: car just like they could drive. Yeah, it was all
21:54
Speaker 1: on the driver, yeah, because it was like you weren't
21:57
Speaker 1: allowed to modify, and any amountifications you could do very
22:00
Speaker 1: slight and they were really heavily regulated and it was
22:03
Speaker 1: all about your driving skills. And they did decide to
22:06
Speaker 1: go that route because it was, like you said, a
22:09
Speaker 1: common bond between the fans and the driver. Yeah, you know,
22:15
Speaker 1: like well and it's still driving the same car. Yeah,
22:17
Speaker 1: I mean that that brand loyalty is still huge. Yea.
22:20
Speaker 1: You know the Chevy guys and the Ford guys, like
22:22
Speaker 1: they don't they stick with the car more so than
22:25
Speaker 1: the driver even. Yeah, it's pretty interesting. Um. Of course
22:29
Speaker 1: now they're much more modified. But back in the day
22:32
Speaker 1: it was called strictly stock, meaning you know there s
22:36
Speaker 1: S means on some cars. I don't know, wonder you
22:41
Speaker 1: haven't seen that, I don't think so, Yeah you have.
22:43
Speaker 1: There's like sometimes like you'll it'll be like a normal car,
22:47
Speaker 1: like a Monte Carlo, but it'll say s S or
22:50
Speaker 1: something next to it. Oh maybe I don't know what's
22:53
Speaker 1: look in at that, or maybe it means like superstock,
22:56
Speaker 1: no strict or it means super. But I did find
23:02
Speaker 1: an interesting though at the beginning of NASCAR in UM,
23:06
Speaker 1: I read this other article where they said that fans
23:10
Speaker 1: didn't want like it was sort of a um, a
23:13
Speaker 1: slap in the face to have these new cars out
23:15
Speaker 1: there being beat up, because it was post World War
23:18
Speaker 1: two and it was kind of waste, wasteful to do
23:21
Speaker 1: something like that. So that's why they got these stock cars.
23:26
Speaker 1: And like a lot of dudes rode in the early
23:28
Speaker 1: days would actually rent cars to race, like a car rental.
23:31
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, they would get just get a rental car,
23:34
Speaker 1: and that's where thrift car care exactly. Uh. And it
23:38
Speaker 1: wasn't until later on that they like um nifty two,
23:41
Speaker 1: I think we're when roll bars were mandated and uh.
23:45
Speaker 1: Then you know, gradually over the years they became more
23:48
Speaker 1: and more modified, although it's still it's still I mean,
23:53
Speaker 1: they're modified, but it's still a regular car. It's not
23:55
Speaker 1: like digital paddle shifters like an IndyCar like you get
24:00
Speaker 1: in a NASCAR car and theoretically you could drive it
24:03
Speaker 1: not well no, let mean be surprised. Oh you know.
24:07
Speaker 1: Junior Johnson said that it was a letdown to go
24:09
Speaker 1: from bootlegging to NASCAR. He said, quote on the race track,
24:14
Speaker 1: you're a running to beat someone out on the highway,
24:17
Speaker 1: You're a running for your life. Awesome. He is eighty
24:24
Speaker 1: one years old now and I just read that he
24:28
Speaker 1: is selling his mansion and downsizing and he sells moonshine
24:34
Speaker 1: midnight Moon. Oh is that his? Yeah? He can sell
24:37
Speaker 1: it like he can bite on the web. And he
24:38
Speaker 1: also sells ham and pork crime. I would eat those.
24:42
Speaker 1: I would do any other movies you got, No, I
24:46
Speaker 1: got too Big Bad Mama bootlegging movie. Yeah, she takes
24:50
Speaker 1: over the bootleg in business after her husband dies. Uh.
24:53
Speaker 1: And then there's a small it's a small part, but
24:56
Speaker 1: it's one of my all time favorite movies. Paper Moon
24:59
Speaker 1: I thought was your leg. Yeah, okay, but it has
25:04
Speaker 1: a small moonshining park bootlegging park. And I think the movie, Uh,
25:10
Speaker 1: did you ever see Thunderbolt and Lightfoot? No? I think
25:15
Speaker 1: that had something to do with bootlegging. I might be wrong.
25:18
Speaker 1: What about Dirty Mary? Wait, Dirty Larry, Crazy Mary? Was
25:23
Speaker 1: that bootlegging? I don't know, but Clint Eastwood was in
25:27
Speaker 1: Thunderbolt and Lightfoot and oh, actually no, it wouldn't about
25:31
Speaker 1: it wouldn't about menshine, but it was about driving really fast. Yeah, yeah,
25:36
Speaker 1: I think so, Blue Lagoon. No, it's about six. If
25:42
Speaker 1: you want to learn more about Whiskey cars, you can
25:45
Speaker 1: type in Whiskey cars with a knee um to the
25:49
Speaker 1: search bart how stuff works dot com. I would also
25:51
Speaker 1: strongly urge you to listen to our Moonshine podcast or
25:54
Speaker 1: prohibition podcast. Uh yeah, and there's articles on the site
25:58
Speaker 1: for those two, so you can type those in the
26:00
Speaker 1: search parts. See what comes up, I said, search bar.
26:02
Speaker 1: This means it's time for a listener mail Chuck. Yes,
26:07
Speaker 1: we should tell everybody about something very special and dear
26:10
Speaker 1: to our hearts New York City. That's right. We are
26:13
Speaker 1: going to Comic Con and we will be doing a
26:16
Speaker 1: live podcast on Friday, October twelve at Comic Con at
26:20
Speaker 1: the jab At Center. It's like our new thing. We
26:22
Speaker 1: did San Diego, now we do in New York. That's
26:24
Speaker 1: right next up Albuquerque. So if you are going to
26:26
Speaker 1: Comic Con, you should come by and see that. But
26:29
Speaker 1: after Comic Con, we have one of our famous it's
26:33
Speaker 1: famous to us all Star trivia nights. Um, where is
26:37
Speaker 1: it gonna be the cutting room? It is at the
26:40
Speaker 1: grand reopening of the Cutting Room in the flat Iron District,
26:43
Speaker 1: which is what's the address. It is forty four East
26:47
Speaker 1: thirty second Street in New York. And uh, it's in
26:50
Speaker 1: the flat Iron you said. And the doors open at
26:52
Speaker 1: seven thirty. Trivia goes down at eight thirty. And what
26:55
Speaker 1: does first come, first serve? Right? Free, free, free, first come,
26:58
Speaker 1: first serve. We will have a bar there that you
27:01
Speaker 1: can buy drinks. Yeah, you can buy us drink that's right.
27:04
Speaker 1: We're gonna basically be having a really good time if
27:06
Speaker 1: you if you're not familiar with our Trivy nights, like,
27:09
Speaker 1: just come out and check it out. It'll be worth
27:11
Speaker 1: your while, absolutely, And stay tuned for info on Facebook
27:14
Speaker 1: and Twitter about the makeup of the all star team.
27:17
Speaker 1: We're filling that out as we speak. But we will
27:19
Speaker 1: have some special guests that you will want to meet. Yeah,
27:21
Speaker 1: and at the very least you can come take on
27:23
Speaker 1: me and chuck right, yeah, okay, it's just fun. So
27:25
Speaker 1: what is that that's Friday, October twelfth, right, yep, the
27:28
Speaker 1: panels that went The panel is at at least okay,
27:33
Speaker 1: and then we're gonna be at the cutting room starting
27:35
Speaker 1: at eight thirty Trivite starts at eight thirty doors at
27:38
Speaker 1: seven thirty. Be there, be square. You were good at this.
27:41
Speaker 1: Thank you? All right the time for listener mail. I'm
27:44
Speaker 1: gonna call this shark attack man. I have to say, Chuck,
27:49
Speaker 1: you're you have to go onto a Twitter account. You
27:51
Speaker 1: were getting kudos all over the place for this. People
27:55
Speaker 1: love that. Hey, kudos stall that actors. Yes, um, all right,
28:00
Speaker 1: shark attack. I just listened to your Shark Attack podcast
28:02
Speaker 1: and was thinking about my boyfriend. Uh, you might be
28:05
Speaker 1: interested in his happy ending of his own shark attack.
28:08
Speaker 1: Kevin is his name. He's from South Africa and he
28:11
Speaker 1: was surfing in front of his house one day when
28:13
Speaker 1: he was sixteen. Went out of nowhere, a great white
28:16
Speaker 1: came up and chopped down on his leg. Shark disappeared,
28:21
Speaker 1: and the one friend he was with helped him back
28:24
Speaker 1: to shore, which was quite a ways, and then went
28:26
Speaker 1: off to the hospital. The doctor patching him up said
28:28
Speaker 1: he was really lucky. Specific can figure the top of
28:31
Speaker 1: the jaw of the shark went into the leg while
28:33
Speaker 1: the bottom never made it through the surfboard, which is
28:36
Speaker 1: kind of like that one story we talked about Surpord
28:39
Speaker 1: saving the life the doctor thought maybe the shark bit
28:41
Speaker 1: him in such a way where the fin of his
28:43
Speaker 1: surfboard hit that soft part under your tongue, you know
28:46
Speaker 1: that party le and hurt the shark, so it swam away. Um,
28:53
Speaker 1: after listening to the podcast, maybe it was just a
28:55
Speaker 1: test bite though, and the shark didn't have any follow through.
28:58
Speaker 1: Now that we're complained, not we're complaining, of course. Anyway,
29:01
Speaker 1: he left with a couple of hundred stitches and was
29:04
Speaker 1: back surfing six weeks later. I'm attaching a picture of
29:07
Speaker 1: his leg. I'm sorry that it's sideways crazy. And I
29:12
Speaker 1: did look and it was the dude's leg that had
29:14
Speaker 1: big shark teeth in it. I didn't see that. Well,
29:18
Speaker 1: it was good, she said. One more thing. We're talking
29:20
Speaker 1: about it just a few weeks ago. And I asked
29:22
Speaker 1: him if he punched the shark or anything like that. Um,
29:26
Speaker 1: I had a zoo books on shark when I was little.
29:28
Speaker 1: I always thought I'd for sure punch a shark. He
29:31
Speaker 1: said it was pretty much the last thing on his mind,
29:34
Speaker 1: which is kind of what I was thinking. Um. Anyway,
29:37
Speaker 1: I loved the podcast. And that is from Bethany and
29:40
Speaker 1: Kevin is the boyfriend awesome, the surfer surfing out in
29:44
Speaker 1: front of his house that must yeah, congratulations and staying
29:47
Speaker 1: alive yes, uh Kevin right, yep. Thanks for the story,
29:51
Speaker 1: bethany Um. If you have a story for us, especially
29:54
Speaker 1: one about how you're granddaddy or Peppy or whoever was
29:59
Speaker 1: a bootleg, your a moonshiner something like that, sure you
30:04
Speaker 1: can send us stuff via Twitter at s y s
30:08
Speaker 1: K podcast. And when I say that means the AT
30:10
Speaker 1: symbol at M person, people do that. No M person
30:15
Speaker 1: is the N sign. So AT symbol s y s
30:20
Speaker 1: K podcast all one word. You can go to Facebook
30:23
Speaker 1: dot com slash stuff you Should Know, or you can
30:26
Speaker 1: send us an email to Stuff podcast at Discovery dot
30:31
Speaker 1: com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
30:39
Speaker 1: Does it how stuff works dot com