11/24/2023 0 Comments Junior johnson midnight moonshineHis father, a lifelong bootlegger, spent nearly twenty of his sixty-three years in prison, as their house was frequently raided by revenue agents. His maternal great-grandfather served as the second-highest-ranking Confederate general in North Carolina. The Johnson family was involved in the whiskey business before he was born. His family is of Ulster Scots descent, and settled in the foothills of North Carolina in the eighteenth century. Johnson was born in Ronda, North Carolina, the fourth of seven children of Lora Belle (Money) and Robert Glenn Johnson, Sr. In May 2007, Johnson teamed with Piedmont Distillers of Madison, North Carolina, to introduce the company's second moonshine product, called "Midnight Moon Moonshine". He was nicknamed "The Last American Hero," and his autobiography is of the same name. He is credited as the first to use the drafting technique in stock car racing. He produced a line of fried pork skins and country ham. In the 1970s and 1980s, he became a NASCAR racing team owner, winning the NASCAR championship with Cale Yarborough and Darrell Waltrip. He won 50 NASCAR races in his career before retiring in 1966. (J– December 20, 2019), better known as Junior Johnson, was an American professional stock car driver. Named one of NASCAR's 75 Greatest Drivers (2023) NASCAR Hall of Fame (2010 - Inaugural Class) Named one of NASCAR's 50 Greatest Drivers (1998) Motorsports Hall of Fame of America (1991) International Motorsports Hall of Fame (1990) Others installed steel plates in front of their radiators to keep police from shooting holes in them and causing their engines to overheat and break down.6× Winston Cup Series Owner's Champion with Cale Yarborough (1976, 1977, 1978) and Darrell Waltrip (1981, 1982, 1985) Johnson did a lot of the things other haulers did back then: He’d modify the engines of his cars to produce more power, add heavy duty suspension components to safely carry the extra weight of all the liquor and remove all but the driver’s seat to maximize the room inside for mason jars filled with booze.Ĭlever moonshiners would sometimes rig their cars to produce clouds of smoke or drop oil or nails from the rear of their cars to thwart pursuing law enforcement officers. Just as importantly, Johnson was a brilliant mechanic who could milk every ounce of speed out of the Fords and Oldsmobiles he used in his whiskey runs. He knew the back roads of his native Wilkes County like the back of his hand and was an exceptionally skilled driver. Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR.īut of all the moonshiners who raced, Johnson was the most legendary. NASCAR Hall of Fame Executive Director Winston Kelley (L) welcomed Junior Johnson into the inaugural Class of 2010. Tim Flock (2014), a two-time NASCAR premier series champion in the 1950s, shuttled hooch back and forth between Alabama and Atlanta before turning to racing. Virginia drivers who were whiskey trippers – slang for bootleggers – included Wendell Scott (2015) and Curtis Turner (2016). Johnson was the best-known bootlegger in Wilkes County, North Carolina, a hotbed of the moonshine industry.Īnother center of the liquor business was Dawsonville, Georgia, home to Hall of Fame team owner Raymond Parks (2017), who ran one of the largest liquor operations in the entire South. The answer is simple: In the first decade or so of NASCAR racing, the transportation of illegal liquor in the South was huge business, and a lot of the sport’s early stars drove, owned or built moonshine cars. Why a whiskey still in an auto racing museum? One of the most prominent displays in the NASCAR Hall of Fame’s Heritage Speedway is a genuine whiskey still built by racing legend and former moonshine runner Junior Johnson, a member of the Hall’s inaugural Class of 2010. NASCAR Hall of Fame Executive Director Winston Kelley explains the story behind the whiskey still Junior Johnson built at the Hall.
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