Wilkes County, North Carolina, 1956. A young man walks into the dark woods to light the fire under his daddy's still, the way he's done a hundred times before. He's twenty-four, already a rising name in stock car racing, and the law has never once caught him on the road.
Tonight, the law isn't chasing him. It's waiting.
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Case at a glance
Who: Robert Glenn "Junior" Johnson Jr., whiskey runner turned NASCAR legend
Where: Ingle Hollow, near Ronda, Wilkes County, North Carolina
When: 1956
Status: Closed, with a presidential pardon at the end
Tone: A lighter one. No bodies this week.
The moonshine capital of the world
For mountain farm families in the early 1900s, whiskey was less about parties and more about math. A wagonload of corn was heavy, slow to haul, and didn't pay much. Run that same corn through a still, and it became a few jugs that were light, didn't spoil, and were worth far more.
Add taxes that dated back to the Whiskey Rebellion, North Carolina's early prohibition laws, and the hard years of the Great Depression, and it's easy to see how Wilkes County earned its famous nickname: the moonshine capital of the world.
The whiskey runners
Making the liquor was only half the job. Getting it to Winston-Salem, Greensboro, and Charlotte meant young drivers running at night on twisting mountain roads, with the law in their rearview mirrors.
They souped up plain-looking Fords and stiffened the rear springs so a loaded car wouldn't sit low and give itself away. They perfected the bootlegger's turn, spinning a full 180 degrees to roar right back past the car chasing them. One runner, Willie Clay Call, got so slippery that federal agents themselves started calling him "The Uncatchable."
Those same cars, and those same drivers, would go on to help build a brand-new sport: stock car racing.
Junior
Junior Johnson grew up in Ingle Hollow, born into the family business. By fourteen, he was hauling liquor through the hills himself.
In the episode, you'll hear how he ran out of gas in the middle of a chase, siphoned fuel from a farmer's tractor to get away, and then came back days later to pay the man twenty dollars for it. You'll hear how a teenage whiskey runner finished second in his very first race at North Wilkesboro Speedway, went on to win the Daytona 500, and ended up as the subject of Tom Wolfe's famous Esquire story, "The Last American Hero."
Caught by a barbed wire fence
After years of never being caught on the highway, Junior's luck finally ran out somewhere the revenuers had all the advantage: on foot, in the woods, at his father's still. The chase didn't end with a crash or a roadblock. It ended in a barbed wire fence.
He served nearly a year in a federal prison in Ohio, then went right back to racing.
Full circle
Junior's story doesn't end in a courtroom. It ends with a presidential pardon from Ronald Reagan, a legal moonshine brand on store shelves, and a stage full of old moonshiners and the revenuers who once chased them, swapping stories and laughing together like old friends.
Junior Johnson died in 2019 at the age of 88. Wilkes County still claims him as its own.
Visit the history
If you're in the foothills, North Wilkesboro Speedway is part of North Carolina's Moonshine and Motorsports Trail, and it's a great place to stand where this whole story started.
Sources
NASCAR.com, "Junior Johnson, moonshiner and NASCAR legend, dies at 88" (2019)
NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, Moonshine and Motorsports Trail: North Wilkesboro Speedway
NCpedia, "Auto Racing and Moonshine in North Carolina"
Tom Wolfe, "The Last American Hero Is Junior Johnson. Yes!" Esquire, 1965
Pull up a chair, Holler Dwellers
Got a moonshine story your granddaddy used to tell? We'd love to hear it. Send it our way, and it might just end up on the show.
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Hosted, researched, and produced by KT.
