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The Outlaw Origins of NASCAR: From Moonshine to Racing · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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  Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Room, Room, Room. Let's hear it
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  Speaker 1: for our super producer, mister Max Williams b Beef how
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: kowk Max.
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  Speaker 2: The Pit, the Human Pit Crew Williams.
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  Speaker 1: Max, the Bootleg Williams Moonshine Williams.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, I hope these things are going to figure
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  Speaker 2: into our story.
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  Speaker 1: Ben, guess that absolutely never happening. Time I've been bullying.
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  Speaker 1: You'reed old Brown.
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  Speaker 2: We got some big NASCAR energy. I think we're all
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  Speaker 2: still fired up from that cage fight at the White House.
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  Speaker 2: Yes we no no.
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  Speaker 3: Cheering for rain.
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  Speaker 1: Which cage fight are you guys talking about? You know,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: the whole past few years have been a cage fighter,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: That's true.
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  Speaker 2: This is the one in the claw in the octagon
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  Speaker 2: right generated some very surreal photographs. Let's just say, like
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: the White House framed by an octagon ring with motocross
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: people leaping in criss cross directions and jets flying overhead.
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  Speaker 2: It's the most delightfully idiocracy thing I've ever seen. Delightfully
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: is the wrong choice of words. But we are not
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: a political podcast, but we are gonna down the line
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: get to talk about some ridiculous history about the time
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  Speaker 2: we're living in currently.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, that is true. As long as this show continues,
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  Speaker 1: we we have Yeah, we like many Americans, have a
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: lot of opinions, and I'd like to think a lot
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: of self awareness about the things that make this country
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: so lovable, so endearing, and so ridiculous. One of the
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Internet's new favorite things right now is the World Cup
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  Speaker 1: takes place in the US. Is seeing Europeans in particular
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  Speaker 1: encounter American culture. There's a German guy I'm absolutely in
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  Speaker 1: love with because he went to laffle house.
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  Speaker 2: That's what it was. It was a waffle house and
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  Speaker 2: maybe an I hoop as well.
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  Speaker 1: He's running, he's running the numbers on all the stuff
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  Speaker 1: he read about or saw short clips of online. We've
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  Speaker 1: also got some great Brits who are having the time
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  Speaker 1: of their lives in Atlanta, so welcome.
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  Speaker 2: Love to see it. I saw some other fun ones
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  Speaker 2: where it was like, oh, BUCkies has been coming up
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  Speaker 2: a lot, what is this majesty? That is BUCkies? This
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  Speaker 2: is this is a gas station to it some eagle
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  Speaker 2: eyed and Bucky enthusiast comments. Commentaries responded, it's more than
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  Speaker 2: a gas station. Yeah, it's a way of life.
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  Speaker 1: It's an experience. It's a bit of a secular hajj.
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  Speaker 1: You're in the here in the southeastern United States.
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  Speaker 2: All hail Booky.
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  Speaker 1: Also shout out to everybody, as I'm thinking, especially of you,
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  Speaker 1: my far flung European and Asiatic friends. Yeah, the free
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  Speaker 1: refills are a thing I told you anyway, walked. As
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  Speaker 1: are the giant cups, As are the giant cups, the
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  Speaker 1: big gulps. There's another thoroughly American thing called Nascar. That's
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  Speaker 1: what this episode is about. If we put on our
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  Speaker 1: car stuff hats, and thanks to our double Dragon of
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  Speaker 1: Research Associate Association here are pal Zach and our own
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  Speaker 1: Max Williams, we are diving into Nascar. It occupies this
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  Speaker 1: weird space in the American consciousness because it's seen is
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  Speaker 1: as classic as a hot dog, for instance, or apple pie.
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  Speaker 1: But but there are people who will tell you it
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  Speaker 1: is the best sport, and there are people will tell
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  Speaker 1: you it is not a sport at all.
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  Speaker 2: Well, Ben, I mean this obviously harkens back to for
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  Speaker 2: me anyway, the days of car stuff with our buddy
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  Speaker 2: Scott Benjamin. I do believe that y'all talked about like
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  Speaker 2: some big races like the Lemons and some of those classic,
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  Speaker 2: you know, tour type car races that were maybe seen
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  Speaker 2: as a little more European than what NASCAR has become.
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  Speaker 2: But it had to have been in some ways like
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  Speaker 2: spiritual successor right.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, the history, and I appreciate that shout out the
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  Speaker 1: history of racing is phenomenal because essentially, and you don't
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  Speaker 1: have to be a gearhead to know this, but essentially, folks,
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  Speaker 1: as soon as the motor vehicle was invented, and as
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  Speaker 1: soon as more more than one rich person or crazy
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  Speaker 1: Tony Stark level inventor goodbye one people started racing cars
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  Speaker 1: and NASCAR descends exactly as you said, from that. It's
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  Speaker 1: it's a huge deal. If you go back to just
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  Speaker 1: last year, twenty twenty five, you'll see that the National
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  Speaker 1: Association for Stock Car Auto Racing had a revenue of
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  Speaker 1: one point seven billion dollars in twenty twenty four. This
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  Speaker 1: happens across twenty seven North American cities. NASCAR, we could argue,
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  Speaker 1: became a sport via convenience, and this is something we're
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  Speaker 1: all familiar with. If we tuned into car stuff, Nascar
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  Speaker 1: has some murky origins. We're talking to shout out ASoP rock.
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  Speaker 2: Here.
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  Speaker 1: We're talking fastcars, danger, fire and knives. We're also talking bootlegging,
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  Speaker 1: smuggling booze during Prohibition.
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  Speaker 2: One hundred percent, which certainly would have required some crafty
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  Speaker 2: vehicle modifications, right.
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  Speaker 1: Absolutely, And that's the cloud at list level, recurring soul
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  Speaker 1: of Nascar if we go to.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, so interesting. I never would have thought. I've been
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  Speaker 2: a little bit invested in the idea of car modifications
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  Speaker 2: through this other podcast project that I'm working on about
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  Speaker 2: human trafficking in Germany across the Berlin Wall during the
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  Speaker 2: Cold War, and it involved a lot of real creative
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  Speaker 2: uses of mini coopers and hollowing out certain electrical components,
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  Speaker 2: compartments and things like that to make room for humans.
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  Speaker 2: So certainly similar concepts here.
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  Speaker 1: Absolutely, yeah. And it's a concept that we the idea
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  Speaker 1: of fighting a sort of Garia war of loopholes and
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  Speaker 1: innovations versus a larger system. It happens in NASCAR today.
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  Speaker 1: If you want to learn more about this and similar races,
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  Speaker 1: check out an awesome new podcast we have out on
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  Speaker 1: iHeart now called no Grip, which focuses on F one
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  Speaker 1: or Formula one racing. We have to give a big,
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  Speaker 1: big thanks to our recurring vicarious guest, Christopher Klein, who
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  Speaker 1: wrote an awesome article for History called how Prohibition led
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  Speaker 1: to the Creation of NASCAR. And so what we need
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  Speaker 1: to realize is there is an historical we can trace Nascar. Right.
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  Speaker 1: You can't trace every sport or every invention to its
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  Speaker 1: origin point. But if you see folks like Junior Johnson,
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  Speaker 1: who is who not I know.
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  Speaker 2: And not to be confused with Big Johnson.
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  Speaker 1: And not not to be confused with Junior Johnson, Junior,
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  Speaker 1: they are Junior Johnson, Junior the third. So it's a
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  Speaker 1: it's a weird name. It's it's very it's very much
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  Speaker 1: like a major major major in Catch twenty two by
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  Speaker 1: Joseph Heller. But we know that this guy Junior Johnson,
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  Speaker 1: and it is his real name. He kept returning home
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  Speaker 1: even after five victories on the NASCAR circuit. He kept
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  Speaker 1: returning home in the nineteen fifties in North Carolina to
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  Speaker 1: work on his real job, his family business, which was
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  Speaker 1: not a mechanics garage, It was moonshining, which work in
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  Speaker 1: the still yeah, making alcoholic beverages, some of which are
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  Speaker 1: not going to kill you or make you go blind.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Right. They've been doing this since the good old days
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  Speaker 2: of the Whiskey Rebellion.
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  Speaker 1: And just so with your upcoming with your upcoming long
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: form podcasts, which are very excited about. I've heard a
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  Speaker 1: little bit of the music and I'd love to hear more. Noel,
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  Speaker 1: can we reveal the name of the show?
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  Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, it's called Final Blow and it actually is.
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  Speaker 2: It going to come out early twenty twenty seven, So
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: we're still chipping away at it, but it's a really
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  Speaker 2: cool project and working on the music and also hosting.
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  Speaker 2: So thanks thanks for mentioning it. Ben.
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  Speaker 1: I think this is our first on air reveal of
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  Speaker 1: a show that we're all quite excited about, So thank
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  Speaker 1: you for that, Nol, of course, and we know that
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  Speaker 1: the reason I'm saying this is similar to the Berlin
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  Speaker 1: Wall situations of smuggling is that Junior Johnson and people
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  Speaker 1: like him, dating back to the Whiskey Rebellion, they were
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  Speaker 1: smuggling hooch in their cars, in their vehicles and whatever
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  Speaker 1: those vehicles at the time were. They had three things
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  Speaker 1: in mind. One they got to carry all this illegal merch,
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  Speaker 1: which is basically what it is, cargo. And then two
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  Speaker 1: they've gone for band. They've got to be faster than
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  Speaker 1: the law, and they have to be more nimble than
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  Speaker 1: the law, especially when you're in the hollers and the mountains.
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  Speaker 1: So this guy would pack so many cases of what
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  Speaker 1: Christopher Klein loosely refers to his hooch inside his house
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  Speaker 1: when he was growing up, that he had to climb
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  Speaker 1: over stacks of illegal booze and moonshine just to go
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  Speaker 1: to bed every night because his household bedroom was a
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  Speaker 1: storage area for their weird, their weird anti government booze trade.
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  Speaker 1: His family farm got raided. They arrested his dad, you know.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that sure did. They confiscated the whiskey, put
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  Speaker 2: his dad in cuffs, and it seemed like a real
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  Speaker 2: inauspicious ending to quite a lucrative legacy.
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  Speaker 1: And Johnson grew from this. He would grow to become
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  Speaker 1: a NASCAR Hall of Famer, which is a huge achievement.
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  Speaker 2: Pivot.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, he became a team owner for NASCAR. And this
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  Speaker 1: is a true story. It's a bit ridiculous. He discovered
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  Speaker 1: his talent as a driver because he was running moonshine
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  Speaker 1: as a teen he was smuggling it as a teenager,
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  Speaker 1: and he says, quote, moonshining was part of my growing up,
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  Speaker 1: but it was also part of my training in auto racing.
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  Speaker 1: He said this much later in nineteen nineties speaking to
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  Speaker 1: the Saint Louis Post dispatch.
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  Speaker 2: Indeed he did, and he went on saying, being in
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  Speaker 2: that business, you had to have a very fast car
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  Speaker 2: and you had to be able to outrun the revenuers.
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  Speaker 2: The revenuers that's a new one on me, or you know,
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  Speaker 2: I got it. It's just a fun one. Or highway
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  Speaker 2: patrol or sheriff or whoever tried to pursue you, to
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  Speaker 2: try and apprehend you. This was the beginning of the
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  Speaker 2: prohibition era. The driver's transporting this moonshine from rural areas
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  Speaker 2: like the Hollers we're talking about, or illegally importing alcohol
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  Speaker 2: from Canada. This is like drug running. It's the same
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  Speaker 2: kind of situations. They had to resort to some pretty
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  Speaker 2: clever and resourceful tactics to change their vehicles and modify
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  Speaker 2: their vehicles in order to elude the authorities on these
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  Speaker 2: winding back roads with these switchbacks and hairpin turns. And
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  Speaker 2: if it hadn't been for the whiskey, he said, Nascar
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  Speaker 2: would not have been formed. And that's a fact.
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  Speaker 1: When he said that quotable, he was talking to the
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  Speaker 1: British broadcasting folks. And also it's kind of like how
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  Speaker 1: you know, whiskey is terrible for people, but it's also
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  Speaker 1: the reason we have James Choice. It is the reason
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  Speaker 1: we have NASCAR. So stock car racing has its roots
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  Speaker 1: in Appalachia, where producing and selling homemade whiskey essentially it
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  Speaker 1: helped people escape crippling poverty up there with hunting Gensen
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  Speaker 1: later on. This especially came to the four during the
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  Speaker 1: Great Depression, which hit an already impoverished area of the
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  Speaker 1: US particularly hard. I actually I am related to people
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  Speaker 1: who have done who have had moonshine stills historically, and
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  Speaker 1: now the heat's the heats a little off them. I
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  Speaker 1: think we have bigger fish to fry and things to
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  Speaker 1: worry about here. But were these people who were making this.
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  Speaker 1: They weren't just a bunch of like problematic fun frat bros.
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  Speaker 1: They were doing this as a means of income to survive.
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  Speaker 1: So it reminds us again of how prohibition ultimately became
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  Speaker 1: a huge, huge revenue stream for organized crime and expanded
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  Speaker 1: their portfolio. Those folks like the Campone mafia esque types,
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  Speaker 1: they made a ton of money institutionalizing this illegal trade. However,
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  Speaker 1: the people who live in these oft ignored parts of
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  Speaker 1: the United States, they're not becoming millionaires off this. They're
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  Speaker 1: not becoming millionaires off illegal booze. They're being able to
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  Speaker 1: do things like keep the house and feed their kids.
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  Speaker 2: Totally, and they're also not particularly stoked about giving up
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  Speaker 2: any of their revenue to Uncle Sam right.
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  Speaker 1: Right exactly, even post prohibition. So if we go to
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  Speaker 1: folks like NASCAR Hall of Famer Curtis Turner, he points out,
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  Speaker 1: those were hard times back in the hills, mean the
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  Speaker 1: hollers and you know the rural areas. Everybody check out
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: American Hollow by one of the Kennedy kids. It's a
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  Speaker 1: phenomenal documentary. It's hard to find now. They said, you
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  Speaker 1: did things you shouldn't do to get by this guy.
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  Speaker 1: Turner is interesting for us because, according to NASCAR dot Com,
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  Speaker 1: he got into the bootlegging game when he was get
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  Speaker 1: this guy's nine years old, so it's child labor as well.
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  Speaker 1: We're not saying it's perfect.
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  Speaker 2: No, no, not not perfect to say the least. So
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  Speaker 2: one thing that is super important to consider when talking
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: about the idea of a stock car, which again you
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: can really dig into some more information about that by
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: listening to the back catalog of car stuff. I can't
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  Speaker 2: recommend enough. It's the idea that the car is supposed
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  Speaker 2: to look like a standard stock vehicle. However, under the
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  Speaker 2: hood there's different stuff going on. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, And we have to point out, for anny, as
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  Speaker 1: to ridiculous historians who are clocking our mention of Prohibition,
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  Speaker 1: Appalachian moonshining continued after Prohibition because, like Noel, you were saying,
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  Speaker 1: people wanted to evade these very punishing vice taxes from
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  Speaker 1: the federal level, and there were a lot of counties
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  Speaker 1: that continued prohibition on a local municipal level. We also
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  Speaker 1: want to give a shout out to a guy named
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  Speaker 1: Neil Thompson, the author of Driving with the Devil, Southern
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  Speaker 1: Moonshine Detroit Wheels in the Booth of Nascar, which weirdly
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  Speaker 1: sounds like it's a mixtape about Nascar. You nailed it.
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  Speaker 1: Stock car means it needs to look like a factory
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  Speaker 1: issue car. The Prohibition Museum says they would keep the
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  Speaker 1: standard exterior right, it would look ordinary on the outside,
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  Speaker 1: but they modified the heck out of the engine for
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  Speaker 1: greater speed. They got rid of the floorboards, they got
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  Speaker 1: rid of the passenger seat, the back seat, and they
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  Speaker 1: did the dead weight right right, and they replaced it
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  Speaker 1: all with cases of moonshine, and then they had to
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  Speaker 1: put in extra springs to handle the weight. They would
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  Speaker 1: try to. They were very good at finding all the
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  Speaker 1: back roads, and part of their success was that there
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  Speaker 1: was no great surveillance state, not to the level we
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  Speaker 1: have now, so if you could get the dirt road,
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  Speaker 1: you could get past the cops.
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  Speaker 2: Well, it's like that. We always joke about how so
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: many plots of nineties movies would have been completely rendered
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: null and void if there had been cell phones, the
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: Seinfeld problem, the Seinfel problem. That is also the case
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: with a lot of historical shenanigans that would have been
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: completely impossible to pull off today with the flock cameras
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  Speaker 2: of it all, or even you know, just CCTV and
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  Speaker 2: just the you know, it's a lot harder to get
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  Speaker 2: away with this kind of stuff. In the lo Fi
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  Speaker 2: thrifty fashion that we're talking.
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  Speaker 1: About exactly and well said. I mean, think about it
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  Speaker 1: this way, fellow ridiculous historians. We know that a lot
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: of the world's most successful cartel leaders, most successful cocaine, fentanyl,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: or heroin dealers, are not themselves consumers of that product.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: That's actually if you get involved in a criminal empire,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: that makes you a really good hire because the guy
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  Speaker 1: who did the most for bootlegging, accidentally is the legendarily
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: problematic Henry Ford of Ford fame. He was a devout teetotler,
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  Speaker 1: which means he doesn't drink, but his Ford V eight
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  Speaker 1: was the engine that drove moonshining ever since it debuted
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty two.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and just to buck contract to what you're saying about,
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  Speaker 2: but peddlers not dipping into their own stuff. It is
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  Speaker 2: the origin of the term never get high on your
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: own supply, or speaking negatively of someone saying they're getting
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: high on their own supply also kind of a stand
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  Speaker 2: in for just being a little full of yourself, right, Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Also, everybody's got their own journey. They're the main
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: character in their own story, So you know, treat all
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: those situations diplomatically and don't snitch.
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  Speaker 2: No, there's another expression. Snitches, you know, get shanked in prison.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: Now that's not how it goes, but you get the idea. Bootleggers, though,
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  Speaker 2: had experimented with various models of car over time, but
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  Speaker 2: they were never quite fast enough. And this is according
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  Speaker 2: to Thompson. But Ford, to your point, been accidentally, for
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  Speaker 2: better or worse, created the perfect moonshine vehicle, the Ford
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  Speaker 2: V eight. This was, you know, still known and revered
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  Speaker 2: to this day. There was an engine that came out
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  Speaker 2: that could match what they needed out of a car.
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  Speaker 2: It was fast enough to stay one step ahead of
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  Speaker 2: the law, he said, rugged enough for the mountain rows,
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  Speaker 2: and had a big enough trunk and back seat to
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  Speaker 2: squeeze in all the moonshine they could handle.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, especially if you took out that shotgun seat in
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: that backseat that vaccat area. So we know that very
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  Speaker 1: very smart mechanics also figured out how to soup up
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  Speaker 1: the Ford V eight so they could get a few
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  Speaker 1: extra miles per every hour of speed, and that makes
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  Speaker 1: a huge difference in car chases, especially if they are
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: prolonged chases. So to further elude these revenue agents and
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: the police, they tricked their They tricked their rides out
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: with all sorts of looking for the right comparison inspector,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: gadget ooh a better one, James Bond level spy movie
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  Speaker 1: meets acme Looney Tunes devices. So you could push a
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: button and you could release a bunch of oil. The
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  Speaker 1: cars behind you would slide on it. Or you could
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  Speaker 1: release tax that would puncture the tires of the tax man.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Tax tac ks versus tax man, tax man. And then
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: they even add smoke screens. I don't know how effective
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: those would be. I don't know how effective a smoke
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  Speaker 1: screen from a car, a driving car is in real life.
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  Speaker 2: Well smoke, I will say, though, Ben, we are talking
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  Speaker 2: about real scary winding back rows, switchbacks and switchback. So
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: maybe you know there is a particular deployable item in
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: Mario Kart that is a squid who will spray your
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: enemies with ink and uh and make it where they
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: can't see where they're going. And that's one of my
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: least favorite ones. That'll cause me to wreck or you know,
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: right off the road if in a dangerous enough what's.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Your favorite one? What's your opinion on the Blueeshell?
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: The blueeshell is the great equalizer. Will we all hate
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: getting it? There is something about it that is a
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: very cool leveler of play in terms of what makes
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: Mario Kart about exciting.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, and I love all the new things you
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: can get in the latest Mario Kart.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: There's some fun new ones. Some of them are a
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: little underwhelming, but I do like that you can go
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: in and decide which items you use or don't use,
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: or which are available, and it is real fun to do.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: Like a match where only blueshells are available. It's total
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: glutton for punishment type behavior, but it makes things absolutely
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: chaos and it's a lot of fun.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: And with this, just like in Mario Kart it the
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: stats of the car do matter. The stats of the
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: vehicle matter, but more importantly, you have to look at
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: the acumen of the person driving the vehicle. So these
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: folks who are not called racers yet they're called runners,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: they needed incredibly high level driving skills to maneuver along
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: things that would swing from paved roads to single lane
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: to double lane to gravel. They'd be driving after dark
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: and sometimes they had to have their headlights off. So
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: just like NASCAR drivers today or I should say Lemon
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: is a better comparison. They had to memorize the track
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: because you know, it's not that difficult to memorize a
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: NASCAR track because you just sort of go left, yeah.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: Exactly left left forever.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah. They also we see the origins or the precedent
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: of what we call a pit crew today. They needed
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: support staff to keep their cars running in top shape.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: So if you were a good mechanic in a struggling
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: town that happened to be along a fortuitous route for
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: these moonshiners, they would approach you like Cia Cia finding
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: academic style. They would say, I hear you real good
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: under the hood. I need something that could run fast.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: I need something that weighs less. I know, we both
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: hate the cops and the revenue man.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: The revenuers, as he said previously, I love that man.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: So now we have fastcars, we've got drivers who are
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: cut above civilian motorists, and we have a small cadre
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: of phenomenal, if ethically fraught mechanics, not saying all mechanics
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: are bad. And these fellas were not going to wait
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: until prohibition ended to make some money, right, and this
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: we have to also remember this is largely a cash
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: economy in this area. So if you have the cash
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: and you don't trust the bank because of what all
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: the shenanigans of the depression, then you're walking away with
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: thirty forty percent more than you would have had if
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: the cops had caught you. So we we have these
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: we have this awesome, if illegal situation. And of course,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: of course we have to remember that we are talking
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: about very small, often isolated, rural areas, so everybody in
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: town knows everybody else, and they know who's got the
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: fastest car. So it should be no surprise that during
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties these excellent teams, not just not just
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: the guys driving and they were pretty much all guys,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: but their entire support staff becomes a little bit famous.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: They become locally famous, like when we hang out at
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: the local our favorite chicken wing spot. So they began
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: to race what they were calling whiskey cars at the
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: local fair and at racetracks, and they said, holy crap,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: look at this. People are paying us not the smuggle
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: illegal poison like alcohol. Now they're paying us just to
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: watch how good we are driving, just to drive fast,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: just to drive fast.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: Heck, yeah, sounds like fun. I mean they already have
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: the skill set. I mean, why not let's go let's
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: go legit. Yeah.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: And this is yeah, like you said earlier, this is
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: a pivot because we know that by this point in
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties, a lot of mechanics, car owners, fair
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: ground promoters, and people who own racetracks, they already had
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: pretty deep ties in the moonshine business. Right, so now
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: they have a legal way to make income.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: They got a path towards a a more legitimate business model.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: And you know, I mean it's almost like I could
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: see initially doing this as almost like a like exhibition
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: driving where you're showing off the car, right and just
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: like showing like how how fast it can go. And
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: then before you know it, this idea of well what
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: if we pitted the best of the best again to
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: one another, and then had it become a little bit
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: more like almost dare we say this is controversial a sport.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Right, right?
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: And as my mother was always fond of saying, not
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: everything is for everyone. But people loved this. And one
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: of the people who loves this is a guy named
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: Raymond Parks who was historically proven to be the first
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: guy ever to put together a formal racing team. Parks
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: ran away from his home in the mountains of Northern
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: Georgia when he was just fourteen years old, and he
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: took up an apprenticeship. Unlike our pal John Chapman from earlier,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: who learned how to plant apple trees, this guy apprenticed
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: to a moonshiner who he met in the county jail.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: We often note that the United States has a problem
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: with its incarceration system such that prisons can be sort
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: of crime university for people. That's what happened here. That's
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: exactly what happened here. He's working at a still is
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: Raymond Parks. He's hauling corn whiskey around Atlanta, and he
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: makes way more money bootlegging than he ever could in
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: the rural areas of North Georgia.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: This is a classic, you know, bad boys made good
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: kind of story. You do love to see it, you know.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And he starts investing his money because he's a
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: smart boy, and he says, you know, I've got to
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: wash it. My money's got me running to the laundry
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: like there's something smelly on me. He buys gas stations
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: he invests in stock car racing. He doesn't have to
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: go too far to find two talented drivers for his
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: emergent racing team. His cousins, you see, happened to be
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: some of the top moonshine runner in all of Northern Georgia.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: They are doing those switchbacks. We were talking about their
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: go at at speed and they're they're like doing eighty
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: one hundred and eighty degree skirt skirt hairpin turns. They're
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: still not dead. His cousins Lloyd, Jay and Roy Hall
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: are running the game.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: Man, I got it. It reminds me back to carstuff again.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: I had the pleasure and privilege of going on a
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: road trip with you and Scott where we participated in
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: kind of a tour type race. We didn't really try
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: to compete. We were just trying to, you know, enjoy it,
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: and we did a little documentary kind of about it
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: with our buddy Casey Pegrim. But that is the first
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: time I ever experienced the kind of mountain hairpin switchback
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: turns and we were taking them. You know, Scott is well,
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: I was a bit of a hell raiser. I love.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: He wanted to let those ponies ride as we would say,
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: but I didn't feel unsafe, but I can only imagine
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: tearing around those those types of super treacherous non you
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: know guard railed turns.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, with four GTA cop stars exactly.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: Uh yeah.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: I remember West Virginia in particular, right when I was
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: we we were we were skirting around with folks who
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: lived in the area and had no compunction about taking
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: taking a hairpin in excess of eighty miles an hour.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: And I apologize he was coming around either.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well not apologize, but I appreciate, uh, all three
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: of you again for listening to me when I was like,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: we need to get at speed, cut the music off
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: until this freaking storm passes. Because we were we were
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: up there and in there.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: It was weird we had and to that point we
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: had to be able to hear, you know, who was
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: coming around. That's a bend because you had no you
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: had no visual on them.
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: I remember something similar when I drove California one, which
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: I'm like going, you know, to give these sixty drops
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: all you picked you and then like right behind you
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: is his car is trying to go like fifty and
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: it's like, oh lord, they must live here because this
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: is just hair.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: They don't care. Yeah, they're used to catch an air
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: on that one hill, right, even in their f one fifties, So.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: We hopefully it did not become the hill they died.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: On, right, And that's a nice reference. Luckily, the cousins
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: are boy parks Hires. They win the first big stop
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: car race in nineteen thirty eight at Atlanta's Lakewood Speedway.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: There are twenty thousand people watching this in person, and
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: that was that was Lloyd who won that one. The
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: other cousin, roy Hole, eventually wins the National stop Car
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Championship in nineteen forty one, and then, you know, students
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: of history, it's nineteen forty one. There's a bit of
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: a conflict for a time where millions and millions of
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: people die. This means stock car racing pauses until September
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: nineteen forty five.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: We're talking about World War two. And to paraphrase the
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: words of Daniel S. Pierce from his book Real Nascar,
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: White Lightning and Red Clay and Big Bill France, at
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: that aforementioned Atlanta Speedway, which is that Lakewood like what
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: became Lakewood Amphitheater. Is it in the same must be
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: in the same zones. I don't know about any Lakewood
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: speedway that still exists to this day, but a ride anymore.
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: You got it. So a near riot, you know, erupted
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: when police banned those fellas who you were talking about
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: for liquor hauling violations. Thirty thousand rabbit fans chanted for Hall,
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: who had his driver's license revoked after being arrested no
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: less than sixteen.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: Times, which is not a bad statistic. Actually even making
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: it to five is crazy.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: I agree. Yeah. The authorities did, however, relent and let
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: that let that man.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: Race, let those ponies run. But Atlanta did not welcome
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: these moonshiners back. The city and the forest did not
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: want to be seen as embracing the criminal element. This
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: is where enters another stock car driver, a guy named
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: Bill France, which we just you know, he's in the
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: title of that book we just quoted. He started to
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: recruit bootleggers or runners to race in Virginia and in
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: North and South Carolina. And it's nineteen forty seven, the
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: very end of the year when France assembles the leading
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: stock car drivers and all those mechanic boffins we're talking about,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: and all those money guys the owners who are like
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: our EPs. Here. He gets them all together in Daytona Beach, Florida,
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: and they say, we're going to.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: Have a meeting.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: It's not like a mafia meeting. We're not doing bootlegging anymore.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: It's just the cars. Now, okay, guys, booze is legal,
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: So now we're focusing on the car. We're going to
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: standardize some rules. This leads to the formation of the
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, which we now
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: call NASCAR.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: Yep, the bend off, Mike, we just made a great
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: comparison of like mafioso's like in the Sopranos who run
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: the pork store, or like you know what is it
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: called sALS Salvator the a front for doing dirty deeds,
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: done dirt cheap, but then decided they're just into being butchers.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: You know, like you start a restaurant, the larger money,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: and then you say, actually, I really do make a
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: good parmesan, you know, chicken, I do make a good pakada.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: I'm passionate about a bolonnaise.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: You know. And guys, we can keep the racketeering and
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: the gambling, but just don't mess up my pacada. Okay,
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: because we do service at six and my team works
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: really hard.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: They sure do, they sure do. They're family, that's.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, a team that Parks put together on
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: the first two official NASCAR championships. And if we didn't
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: have Raymond Park's ill gotten moonshine gains, then we probably
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have NASCAR in its current form today. But the
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: thing is our guy Bill France, who's on this mission
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: to legitimize racing based on smuggling. He says, I don't
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: want to have NASCAR associated with this. I want to
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: distance our pivot from bootlegging. I want us to, you know,
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: just be about racing. And eventually this led to internal
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: tensions in the crew. It contributed to the decision by
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: Parks to leave NASCAR and sell off all his own
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: stock cars in nineteen fifty one. So Parks, who had
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: the illegal Money guy, the illegal money ep of this,
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: he left and Bill Frank that's took leadership of NASCAR.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: They got a ton of corporate sponsorship. And what are
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: the funniest ones is Mountain Dew.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, I saw that, Ben, and it made
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: me think, gosh, Mountain Dew. We've talked about that recently.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: And then it occurred to me that we had because
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: it was originally created as a mixer for whiskey and
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: then kind of became a like post prohibition not stand
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: in for whiskey, But it made perfect sense for that
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: to be the sponsor, that was the post prohibition flag
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: bearer for this sport that started during Prohibition and was
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: so tied to Tennessee whiskey. Yeah, mountain dew, the wholesome whiskey.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: And not especially loving either of those beverages separately.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: I like a diet mountain dew from time to time.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I hear you, Ben, but could you picture
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: it with alcohol in it? God? No, okay, no, you
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: don't do it. I rarely been. Does a whiskey with
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: citrus make a lot of sense, sort of an old
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: fashion with just a little orange peel or an orange
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: twist or something like that. But yeah, I don't typically
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: go for a super citrusy whiskey mixer.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: Can you imagine going into like I have to go
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: to some fancy places at times? I just I can't
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: imagine being at Michelin restaurant or at a super duper
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: fancy hotel bar and having someone say I'll take your
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: finest whiskey and a Mountain dew code red exactly.
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: That is taking it up a notch. It does make
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: me think of a I think still relatively popular cocktail
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: at seven and seven, which is like, let's see Seagrums
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: and seven up.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: Oh okay, what is secrums?
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: Seagrums Gin?
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: Oh okay, I'm out. That's called Mother's Ruin? Right? Do
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: we ever do an episode about Gin? How it wrecked
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: the United King?
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: Holy crap, I'm wrong. It's Seagrum's Crown Whiskey.
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: I was going to jump in here and be like,
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: because I was actually.
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: A citrus whiskey cocktail that is pretty popular.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: Well it is.
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: It's a Canadian whiskey, So Canadian whiskey like a like
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: a Seagrum seven a Crown Royal Canadian club. Well, actually
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: we'll actually look, you know, work pretty well with citrus,
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: but because it's sweeter, yeah, which is even sweeter than
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: a lot of things will not.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: Okay, all right, Well, I've learned a lot that I
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: was not, you know, thinking I would learn today, and
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: that is one of the great appeals of the show
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: for us and hopefully for you fellow ridiculous historians. We
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: know that Bill France was a visionary, right, he was prescient.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: He said, I can develop NASCAR into a friendly sport
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: for families. We can make more and more money over time,
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: and we don't need to break the law to do that.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: We can downplay the connection between our current state and
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: our dodgy origin story.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is often, at least in fiction, the dream
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: of fledgling criminals to go to go straight one day,
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: one last job and then I'm going legit exactly nice
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: to see when it actually happens it works out.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which is what we what we tell ourselves privately
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: and as a podcast every time, every time we do
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: an episode.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're in this for the long haul, man.
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: But the we we do know that they've got to
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: just car stuff. Requires me to put this in here, Guys,
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: we do know that NASCAR and racing in general still
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: has that fight the system punk rock energy because every
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: year the established regulatory bodies f one NASCAR, you name it.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: They will have seri of strict rules and constraints about
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: how a driver can operate, about the technology under the hood,
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: about different like very very pedantic things and very specific
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: explicit things. And so the job of the team if
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: you're racing NASCAR is still to figure out your way
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: around these rules, legal loopholes, So you're still you're now
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: we're no longer smuggling whiskey, I would I would say,
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: we're smuggling innovation.
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: Which is like a glueing hot gluing the coin to
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: the bottom of your Pinewood Derby car.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: Which yeah, until it's illegal by a regulatory body. So
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: I love the idea of taking smuggling activities and mentality
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: and replacing that with not smuggling moonshine, but with smuggling innovation.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: And that is one of the coolest things about NASCAR.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, I forgot what else I was going to say,
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: but you know, we do know that NASCAR has ethanol
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: in gas tanks. So that's kind of like movie booze
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: around mabeoint.
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: It's a good point.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: We know that sa their roots. There we go in
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: some way. In twenty seventeen, our buddy Raven Parks gets
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame. Ed NASCAR is finally,
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: now that they are so established, now that they're a
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: multi billion dollar business, they're finally a little bit more
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: comfortable being transparent about their ridiculous origin.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: Story their criminal past checkered flags. Indeed, in twenty seventeen,
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: Parks was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame, which
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: does feature an exhibit about the craft of bootlegging along
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: with a real life, authentic Moonshine still built by our
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: hero Junior Johnson himself.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: And with that, we hope you enjoyed this episode, folks.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: We hope that you drive safely on the road. Remember
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: GTA five is a video game and should not be
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: real life. Also, never drive impaired, even if you've got
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: a little bit of that Dutch sunshine and confidence in you,
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: which is a phrase we made up, but it makes sense.
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: Wow, booze and driving don't mix unless you're talking about
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: the history of NASCAR.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: There we go, perfect. Big big thanks to our super
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: producer and co research associate for this episode, mister Max Williams.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: Big thanks to Alex Williams who composed this track.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: M Bang a bot that it is, Chris Frasiotis and
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: Eve Jeffcoats. Huge thanks to them for being here in spirit.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: We might actually oh here in spirit haha, and we
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: might actually hear from our buddy Eves a little bit later.
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: In the show as a corresponded. We love it when
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: Eves out with us on air and she is currently
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: traveling the world. She's been in India. She's living in
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: joe Burg, Johannesburg, South Africa right now, so maybe she'll
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: maybe she'll hit us up with some local history that
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: she's encountered.
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm, badass human indeed, Man, Huge thanks to you, man,
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: this is fun.
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, hey man, huge, thanks to you. Huge thanks Nascar Beat,
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: Beep Go Left, Big thanks to aj Bahamas Jacobs, and
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: big thanks to you fellow ridiculous historians.
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: to your favorite shows.