Daniel S. Pierce

By JOHN NORTH

The close ties between the illegal liquor industry and organized stock-car racing were reviewed, with many colorful and amusing anecdotes, by Daniel S. Pierce during a talk at The Cornerstone Restaurant in East Asheville on the afternoon of Jan. 29.

Pierce, who is author of the book “Real NASCAR: White Lightning, Red Clay and Big Bill France,” addressed a full-house meeting room crowd of about 40 to 50 people during the 90-minue program hosted by the Western North Carolina Historical Association. Pierce, who hold a Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee, is chairman of UNC Asheville’s history department.

He was introduced by Bruce Greenwalt, a retired UNCA history professor and friend, who noted that Pierce, a Lake Village, Ark., native, was raised in West Asheville. With a smile, Greenwalt pointed out that Pierce “is unique and unusual at UNCA because he has deep roots in the area ... Most of the professors up there are ... sort of ... carpetbaggers.”

To the crowd’s merriment, Pierce interjected, “Sort of?”

Then Greenwalt told of taking a long trip with Pierce, who would say, as certain vehicles passed, “There goes a Richard Petty fan. There goes a Dale Earnhart fan.” Greenwalt was mystified how Pierce could identify the allegiances of the passengers in the cars whizzing past them so easily. Eventually, Pierce explained that he noticed the drivers’ numbers on the bumpers or rear windows.

“My first thought was: Are we safe with all these NASCAR fans on the road? Also, what kind of professor enjoys — and knows this much — about NASCAR?”

Greenwalt prompted much laughter from the crowd when he turned the program over to Pierce, whom he described — in jest — as “the resident professional ‘cracker’” at UNCA.

Smiling, Pierce began by noting that he has known Greenwalt for about 20 years. As for NASCAR, he said, “I came into this kind of accidentally ... I grew up in West Asheville and we could hear the Asheville Speedway every Friday night” from his family’s home. “We didn’t go (to the races) and we kind of looked down at the people that did.”

Pierce added, “It wasn’t until 1974 that I went to my first race. It was a night race at Bristol — one of the most coveted tickets in NASCAR. I became a convert ... I went to as many races as I could afford. I also became a fan of the history of NASCAR.”

Ever since, he has been able to sit down and converse with leading NASCAR figures, including the top drivers, “who were there since the beginning ... I met a few celebrities in my time and found them warm, accommodating people. For example, he had breakfast with racing legend Junior Johnson at his farm.

Pierce told of a surreal interview of Richard Petty, who was wearing his trademark cowboy hat and dark glasses, “sitting under a picture of (Gen.) Robert E. Lee, with (Petty) spitting tobacco into a Pepsi can.”

However, one of the figures who most intrigues Pierce is Big Bill France, who founded and owned NASCAR. “He is NASCAR,” the professor said. “Not only does he and his family own the sport, they own about half the venues.”

“The Frances made their fortune when Bill France arrived in Daytona Beach (Fla.) with his car, a toolbox and about $35 in cash,” Pierce said, shaking his head in wonder.

He then said he would focus his talk on “the connection of NASCAR and moonshine.” He paused and quipped, “This is such a strange thing for the son of a Baptist preacher to talk about.”

Pierce added, “Most people say, ‘NASCAR was started by bootleggers — and Junior Johnson ... There is so much about history that is assumed and it’s just not true. Nobody had really verified” the early history of NASCAR. “When you become a historian, you become a professional skeptic. We trust no one.”

The crowd laughed when the professor said, “The deeper I looked into the subject, the more liquor I found,”

especially the “white-liquor business — or moonshine.” He said the red-liquor business, which involves selling legally produced liquor in areas where it was illegal, mainly the South — also had a significant impact on NASCAR.

In speaking of the moonshine connection to NASCAR, Pierce said the Petty family “has long denied any connection with the white liquor industry.” However, he noted that his research indicated that “a good number of these drivers hauled liquor to begin their careers.”

Pierce said, “So many of the foundational speedways in the 1940s and ‘50s were started and bankrolled by big-time bootleggers.”

For instance, the old Asheville-Weaverville Speedway, located at the current site of North Buncombe High School, was owned by Gene Sluder, who “exemplified the ties to the illegal liquor industry.” As with many of the early NASCAR profit-makers, he later diversified his investments into more respectable businesses.

“Academics who have looked into this before have said it’s overblown,” Pierce said. “NASCAR does admit Junior Johnson did get his start that way (running moonshine).”

The professor said there is a story, which is not true, that stock car racing started in a cowpasture outside of Atlanta, where several bootleggers met to settle bets — via racing — on whom had the best cars and drivers. Word of the race supposedly got around and, to the bootleggers’ amazement, a crowd showed up to watch the race, giving them the idea to start a new sport to make even more money.

However, Pierce said, such races “didn’t start in a cowpasture,” a location where he said it would virtually be impossible to drive competitively.

Pierce noted that NASCAR’s development was spurred by developments in the Piedmont South in the 1920s and ‘30s, which “was a place in transition.” To make a living, men worked in nearby mills because it was nearly impossible to make a living on a farm.

“In Wilkes County, there wasn’t much to do but work in a furniture factory, a hosiery mill or sell (illegal) liquor.” That situation, coupled with the advent of Prohibition in 1907 in North Carolina and the arrival of the automobile, spurred demand for alcohol and enabled bootleggers to afford the fastest cars and drivers to elude the hopelessly left-behind law enforcement.

He noted that “people had been making liquor in this region since they came to the United States.” In the South, corn was used as the key ingredient because it was easily available and affordable, Pierce said. “In the 1920s in particular, the moonshine business began to grow.

“People began using refined sugar, which had just become available on a large scale, speeded up the process of distilling considerably.”

Many counties in North Carolina remained “dry” into the 1960s, making moonshine profitable for years, Pierce noted.

With a note of enthusiasm, Pierce said a key vehicle used by moonshiners in the 1930s was the flat-head V8 Ford, which the professor termed “Henry Ford’s last great invention.”

“There was a movement in the South to build roads ... and a huge market of people in the South who wanted whiskey and could afford to buy it ... People who wanted to hold onto their land and wanted to stay out of the mill were willing to take risks, such as running whiskey.”

He spoke of the “hell-of-a-fellow,” who was an ultra-competitive, sometimes violent, Southern man willing to take almost any risk.

“Particularly on the edge of the mountains, this (running moonshine) became huge.” Wilkes County was one such ideal location, he noted.

With a grin, Pierce said he found a story about a man visiting North Wilkesboro in the 1930s, asking where he could buy some liquor. A native simply pointed to the local U.S. Post Office and reportedly said, “That’s the only place you can’t buy it.”

NASCAR was started in 1947, as “Bill France had built an empire where their skills and money, which came out of the illegal liquor industry. It’s foundational to the very industry. Here’s a group on the bottom rungs of society who used their creativity to build an industry.”

Today, tracks such as Bristol Motor Speedway seat 160,000 people. “It’s a several billion-dollar industry and one of the most popular sports in the United States. It was created by people in this part of the country. And I think it’s a whole lot of fun,” Pierce said.