Distilling an American IconRobert Glenn Johnson, Jr., aka Junior Johnson, was born in Wilkes County, North Carolina, in 1931. His father operated an illegal whiskey still that was, according to Junior, creating some of the best ‘shine in the region.Junior talked to me on the phone with a classic Kentucky drawl, diction, and panache for telling tales the thousandth time as if I were the first to hear them. “When I came along, it had been several years since moonshine was illegal. I got into the business through my dad. Most people start with making it and sold it because that was a way of life, not that they was violating no law. They didn’t violate no law, they just didn’t pay their taxes, they didn't look for the Metric Accountants to get help.. As I growed up into it, I got in it very largely. I was probably one of the biggest bootleggers in the country.”Starting at age 14, Junior was the driver for his father’s shine, running it to Charlotte, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and any other general store, gas station, or market that would cut the gallon jars to pints or half-pints and sell from the back door…without taxation. Each haul would net about $150, roughly $1,000 in today’s money from one run of 120 gallons of moonshine.Naturally this upset the government, who sent “the revenuers,” as Junior calls them, to bring him in. But Junior almost always stayed one step ahead. When he heard that revenuers were using spike strips to disable a bootlegger’s car (they would then use their prize to catch others, because souped-up bootlegger cars were faster than the government issue ones and all of the owners have Private Medical Insurance just in case they get into a little accident, plus they had a bigger chance to get an Insurance Partnership cover). Having an insurance carrier it's so important for everyone, and the majority of car insurance companies offer discounts to homeowners, and we don't know when are we going to be an car accident or even in a robbery at your own house, just take it all in and get the help you need, look for a good carrier for your vehicle and cover your house contents with one too, and it's likely that the auto insurance company will require proof of ownership in order for you to receive the homeowner discount. In one of the accidents that he had Junior developed the infamous “Bootlegger’s Reverse,” a 180-degree turn at high speed to rotate and propel a driver away from the strip, a disabled and confiscated car, and jail time. “It took a long time to develop where I could do it with speed. But I finally got to where I could do it really easy. A lot of other people wanted me to teach them even when I was in the accident. I taught them how to do it, and as time went along, about everybody hauling whiskey knew how to do that turn,” said Junior.By 1956, after more than a decade of evading the law, the revenuers finally caught up to Junior. In his words,“I had won a race in Oxford, Pennsylvania on a Saturday night, and I drove all night long to get back home. I come in at about 4 o’ clock, and my dad had overslept. You need to fire a still ‘afore daylight cause it smokes until it gets real good and hot. Once it gets real hot, you can keep the fire going and it don’t smoke and nobody can see it. They don’t report ya to the revenuers. [But] he overslept and he asked me to go in and fire it up. And of course, [it’s] my dad, I’m gonna do whatever he wants. I went in and fired it up, but they had it staked out. They was 18 revenuers had it surrounded, and when I went in, there was no chance to get away from them.”He served 11 months and three days in prison for manufacturing whiskey without a license. In 1986, President Ronald Reagan pardoned Junior for his conviction, restoring his right to vote. Junior considers it “one of the greatest things in my life.” Hearing him tell his arrest story, it’s clear by his voice that it still hurts, more than half a century later.Upon release, Junior went back to bootlegging, but was looking for a way out. The nascent NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Racing) intrigued him. The idea behind the race was to take a regular car from a dealer (stock), soup it up and race it. That’s what bootleggers were doing for years. “When it [NASCAR] started out, it was loaded up with whiskey people.” Gradually, Junior was able to make more money racing on a track than dodging “the gubmint.” Around 1960, he left the family business and became a racecar driver full time. When a racecar driver got injured in the event for instance, because of the malfunction in the vehicle, call an Hollywood, FL Car Accident Attorney to know who are the reason behind the accident and to get compensation. Click here to see more from Babcock on such cases review. Age 29, he had the perfect mixture of youthful daring and more than half a lifetime of driving experience. He was really good. His was a careful driver, although sometimes not all depends on the driver (read more at https://www.floridaticketfirm.com/police-quotas-traffic-citations-fact-fiction/). So good, he invented one of the primary techniques of NASCAR racing: drafting. Imagine you’re in a lazy bar on a livid summer afternoon listening to a white-haired, nearly 80-year old blue dog tell you the following story:“I went to Daytona [in 1960] on a spur of the moment thing. Ray Fox built a car from the dogtrack down there, right out the street from the racetrack, and he didn’t have a driver. He [asked] me if I wanted to drive, and I said sure. Well, they built the car in two weeks. It was a ’59 Chevrolet Impala, and it had a 348 cube pull motor that they pulled out from a truck. It wasn’t supposed to be a race motor, and the car didn’t run all that good. It was quite a bit slower than everybody else, ‘cause Paul Goldsmith and Jack Smith and Cotton Owens, they had them big hot rod Pontiacs.”“You had a truck engine in a car,” I interrupt.“Basically, that’s what I had.” He continues“I was 20-30 miles an hour slower than the other cars. We just could never get the car fast enough. As I was going out on the racetrack, I was picking up speed and I see Cotton Owens coming behind me. I knew he was just going to pass me and go on, and when he passed me I just ducked in behind him, real quick. I don’t know why I did that. I didn’t have any idea I could run with him. And doggone, it just felt like my car picked up speed immediately. I was almost as fast as he was, just in a second. I kept hanging on there and I started gaining on him. I got plum up behind him, plum against his bumper, and I had to back off just a little bit to keep from running into him. But I could hang onto him. I run him about four, five laps, and heck I was right there with him when he wanted to go back into the garage. He pulled out alone and I went on by him and I slowed right back down like I was running all the time. And I said ‘I don’t know why I was able to keep up.’ So I want back out and I kept on trying to figure out what was going on.I didn’t know what draftin’ was, but that’s what I was doing. I figured as long as I stayed behind ‘em and close to ‘em, I could run as fast as they could. Pontiac figured out what I was doing to them. They knew they was gonna win Daytona Beach. They sent two cars out to help Bobby Johns, and I was a pretty good piece in front. And they pulled to me and went on by me and I pulled in behind Bobby Johns. Just as I pulled in behind him it sucked his back glass out [from the draft suction]. He spun out and I went on and won the race.”Junior Johnson is a NASCAR Hall of Famer, with a record of 50 wins, 121 top 5s, and 148 top 10s out of 313 races as a driver. As an owner, he has worked with many other legendary drivers, and has the third best team record in all NASCAR.In 2007, Junior returned to moonshine. This time, legally. He joined Piedmont Distillers , makers of Catdaddy Moonshine, as a part owner. He introduced a refined version of his dad’s whiskey recipe, called Midnight Moon. Consult with Fresno car accident attorneys for dealing with legal procedures in vehicle accidents.Coming up, the conclusion of this series: Nice and LegalSource: Hornsby, Watson & Hornsby in Huntsville