Daytona 500 and Bootlegging

Jamie McMurray won the Dayton 500 earlier today.

Dayton 500 is a 500 mile long NASCAR race. National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) is unique as it is a family operations sports venture and is the largest sanctioning body of stock car racing in the United States.

Stock car racing has very interesting history in the US much before it became a sport. It has its origins in bootlegging during Prohibition, when drivers ran bootleg whiskey made primarily in the Appalachian region of the United States. Bootleggers needed to distribute their illicit products, and they typically used small, fast vehicles to better evade the police. Many of the drivers would modify their cars for speed and handling, as well as increased cargo capacity, and some of them came to love the fast-paced driving down twisty mountain roads. The repeal of Prohibition in 1933 dried up some of their business, but by then Southerners had developed a taste for moonshine, and a number of the drivers continued "runnin' shine," this time evading the "revenuers" who were attempting to tax their operations. The cars continued to improve, and by the late 1940s, races featuring these cars were being run for pride and profit.


Photo credit: Nick Traveller