How Moonshine Created NASCAR Part 6 - Sports Bizarre

In the final episode on the beginnings of NASCAR, Bill France seizes control of the new organisation but a new challenge immediately presents itself.

Again, he relies on the bootleggers and moonshiners, and finds a new hero in a bootlegger by the name of Junior Johnson.

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Resources

There is a lot on the web about NASCAR’s early days, including a heap of contemporary sources. Rising above all that and a lot more accessible if you want to learn more are two key books, Real NASCAR: White Lightning, Red Clay, and Big Bill France by Daniel S. Pierce and Driving with the Devil: Southern Moonshine, Detroit Wheels, and the Birth of NASCAR by Neal Thompson.

For more on how the moonshine industry worked, North Carolina Moonshine: An Illicit History by Frank Stephenson Jr. and Barbara Nichols Mulder is fascinating.

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