The REAL Story of Moonshine and NASCAR – Part III
Sunday, March 7, 2010 at 06:33PM The Drivers – Post World War II
While most of the star drivers on the fledgling Piedmont stock car racing scene before World War II were involved in the illegal liquor business, if anything their numbers and influence increased after the war. Indeed, if Bill France had a major advantage over rival promoters after the war, it was his ability to deliver those wild and crazy North Georgia liquor haulers—most banned by the City of Atlanta from Lakewood Speedway—to the growing number of tracks hosting stock car races in the Carolinas and Virginia.
Soon after the war, Fonty and Bob Flock took over from Lloyd Seay (murdered by his cousin) and Roy Hall (in the Georgia State Penitentiary for armed robbery) as the top stars in the sport. Both Flocks gained their experience behind the wheel of a souped-up Ford hauling liquor for their uncle, Atlanta moonshine kingpin Peachtree Williams. Many observers consider Bob one of the greatest talents in stock car racing history, but injuries and a dour disposition that led to frequent fights on and off the track limited his success and influence. In one of the great stories of stock car racing’s early history, Bob defied the bootlegger ban and tried to sneak into a race at Lakewood in the late 40s and ended up fleeing from the police who tried to apprehend him, crashed through the track fence, and led them on a wild chase through the streets of Atlanta evading capture (although he later turned himself in).
While most observers credit war hero Red Byron as the biggest star in the early days of NASCAR and its predecessor series the National Championship Stock Car Circuit (NCSCC), Fonty Flock was the main draw. Together he and Bob were billed as the “Mad Flocks” and with the dapper, charismatic Fonty as the top name on most race advertisements brought the fans in by the thousands. Fonty remained the top draw in stock car racing into the early 1950s and is probably most remembered for winning the 1952 Southern 500 wearing Bermuda (or “Bamooda”, as he pronounced it) shorts and argyle socks and parking his car in front the grandstands after his victory, standing on the hood of his car, and leading the crowd in singing “Dixie.”
Fonty is another one of those individuals who most NASCAR fans have never heard of who deserves early induction in the Hall of Fame. He was the mustachioed face of NASCAR in its earliest days.
Other North Georgia trippers who starred in the late 40s and early 50’s included Crash Waller, Billy Carden, Glenn “Legs” Law, and Jack Smith. Perhaps the biggest star—outside of the Flocks—was Ed Samples. You won’t find much mention of Samples in the NASCAR record books, but he won the championship in Bill France’s NCSCC in 1946, finished second to Fonty Flock in 1947, and won championships in the late 40s and early 50s in the National Stock Car Racing Association (NSCRA) and the South Carolina Racing Association (SCRA), top rivals to Bill France’s NASCAR.
While the North Georgian bootleggers were the force to be reckoned with in early Piedmont stock car racing, they were soon challenged by liquor haulers from the Carolinas and Virginia. North Carolinians Buddy Shuman, Glenn Dunnaway, and Jimmie Lewallen (subject of a new movie entitled “Red Dirt Rising”—see http://www.reddirtrising.com/new/ for more information) and South Carolinian Fred Mahon soon became top contenders.
The most notable addition to the stock car racing ranks in the period came when bootlegger Curtis Turner—the “Blond Blizzard” from Floyd, Virginia—burst on the scene in 1946. “Pops” (a nickname Turner received for his propensity for “popping” his competitors to get them out of his way) was as flamboyant and charismatic as Fonty Flock. There was never a dull moment with Turner on the track; he would either blow up, wreck, or win the race and then host the largest, loudest, and lewdest party anyone had ever seen afterwards. He soon became one of the sport’s top draws and would remain so until the late 1960s. In 1968, he became the first stock car racer to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated with a feature article inside calling him the “Babe Ruth of Stock Car Racing.” Turner is another who deserves early induction into the NASCAR HOF.
By the early 1950s, other trippers moved into the top ranks of the sport. Joe Weatherly from Norfolk, Virginia soon became a top driver—he won two Grand National Championships in the early 60s--and Curtis Turner’s partner in leading NASCAR in practical jokes and partying. South Carolina bootlegger, turned Charlotte bus driver, Buck Baker won the 1956 GN championship and Denton, North Carolina bootlegger Bob Welborn won the NASCAR Convertible Championships in 1956, 57, and 58. Danville, Virginia liquor hauler Wendell Scott also began to make a splash on the local short track scene in southern Virginia and would go on to a long NASCAR career and become the only African American (to date) to win a race in NASCAR’s top division.
There has been a lot of controversy over the years about another of NASCAR’s top drivers and his relationship with moonshine; Lee Petty. Petty always denied his involvement with illegal liquor, but recently even the Petty family has admitted that he had at least limited involvement. When asked about Petty’s connection to moonshining by reporter Ed Hinton, Bob Welborn responded, “All I know is I used to take 50 gallons a week over to his house. I don’t know—maybe he drank it all himself.” In relatively recent years—most notably since Lee’s death—Richard Petty has admitted that his daddy probably had some minor involvement and grandson Kyle has provided some pretty strong evidence of Lee’s connections to the business as he shared the fact that two of Lee’s brothers were busted for counterfeiting sugar rationing stamps during World War II—a sure sign of illegal liquor involvement.
By the time Junior Johnson arrived on the NASCAR scene at the Southern 500 in 1953, the era of the liquor hauling stock car racer was actually in decline. Indeed, increasingly the new breed of stars like Fireball Roberts, Paul Goldsmith, David Pearson, and Ned Jarrett had no direct involvement in hauling liquor. Tim Flock did ride along on lots of moonshine hauling trips with his brothers, but they kept him out of the business at their mother’s request.
Junior was a late-comer for a bootlegger in the sport, but would have a huge impact as a driver in the late 1950s and early 60s. His style was often reminiscent of Curtis Turner’s and as reporter Dick Thompson put it, Johnson “looks like a wrestler and drives like a maniac.” As most NASCAR fans know, Johnson did spend much of 1957 in the federal penitentiary at Chillocothe, Ohio, but most don’t realize (unless you’ve read the Tom Higgins and Steve Waid classic biography Junior Johnson: Brave in Life) that Johnson narrowly missed another prison sentence when he was arrested—along with his two brothers and his mother—on another moonshining charge in 1959.
By the 1960s the era of the moonshine tripper/stock car driver era was pretty much over as the moonshine business declined with the arrival of more factory jobs and improved rural employment opportunities with cattle and chicken raising . A few drivers had had some involvement, but most came out of more legal—if not just as rough—backgrounds. In the early 1970s when North Carolina passed a liquor-by-the-drink law that proponents argued would put the bootleggers out of business, Joe Littlejohn quipped, “Where will our race drivers get their early training?”
While the moonshine hauler/stock car racer era seems to be in the distant past, there are—fortunately, at least from the perspective of this historian--some vestiges of that bygone time left in the sport. Morgan Shepherd, whose father was a Catawba County bootlegger, hauled liquor in his early days and at age 68 is still trying to make a living in the Nationwide Series. The most notable presence in NASCAR with a bootlegging past is car owner Richard Childress. Childress hauled moonshine in his late teens in the Winston-Salem area and made good money at it. “I did it for a few years, and in 1962 or 1963, I bought a 1959 Chevy, and I can still hear people saying, ‘How in the devil does a kid working at a service station do that?’” Ironically, Childress is now the owner not only of a top NASCAR Sprint Cup team, but the proud proprietor of Childress Vineyards, one of the largest wine operations in the Southeast.
So let’s have a toast—of whatever your favorite beverage may be (I’m personally a big Cheerwine fan)—to NASCAR’s colorful bootlegging drivers who laid the foundation for a great sporting enterprise. May their spirit, love of fun, and ability to thrill a crowd live on.
Next week: Part IV – Bootlegging, Early Car Owners, and Mechanics
***Let me put a plug in for a great event coming up on March 14 when “Legends Helping Legends” will be holding its Fourth Annual fundraiser at the Memory Lane Museum in Mooresville, North Carolina. The event runs from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and will include autograph signings by such NASCAR greats as Rex White (this year’s event is being held in his honor), Ned Jarrett, Bobby and Donnie Allison and many, many more. All proceeds go to Living Legends Medical Fund to benefit former NASCAR drivers and crew members in need.
Monday, January 11, 2010 at 01:20PM