Whiskey Cars

I just finished a great read by Neal Thompson. Driving With the Devil, Southern Moonshine, Detroit Wheels and the Birth of NASCAR. One intriguing aspect was how much Henry Ford and his cars directly influenced the success of the early bootleggers. Men like Red Voght, a mechanic who got his start modifying the early "whisky cars", Lloyd Seay, moonshiner and racer, and Red Byron, who won NASCAR's first race in 1948, all sang the praises of the Ford V-8. It was also interesting reading the dynamics of how these cars handled while carrying a full load of moonshine, how far they could be pushed, and the driving techniques employed to gain any edge while outrunning the law. Later in the book, you get the perspective from the driver's seat in some of the early NASCAR venues like Daytona Beach. This was decades before seat belts or any regard for safety. There was actually a technique used where the ruts in the soft sand would allow the drivers to get up on two wheels and power through the corners. Vehicles often rolled in these dangerous turns. The ones that still ran (and whose drivers weren't incapacitated) were flipped back over and would continue racing. Check out the following clip about 40 seconds in.