Social History: NASCAR’s earliest days forever connected to bootlegging…
Bootlegger speeding away. Perfect training ground for NASCAR.
The stories would be very nearly clichéd, if they weren’t at the same time oh-so true.
If you’re even remotely familiar with NASCAR lore, you know the tales. A bunch of dirt poor good ol’ boys who lived anywhere from Virginia on down to Georgia had no other choice to survive than the illegal whiskey business. They souped up their cars to haul their bounty, and then ran from the law like their behinds were on fire.
Red Bryon…
And because, well, heck, boys will be boys, they wound up racing each other on the local highways and byways. Then, somebody got the bright idea to cut a crude track out of some cow pasture somewhere, and the rest, as they say, is history. Junior Johnson was the most famous bootlegger to make a name for himself in NASCAR, of course, but he darn sure wasn’t the only one.




















