WEBVTT - Episode 4: White Lightning 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:17.600 Campsite media in there. As I've always said, there are 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:22.079 two noble professions left. There are two honorable professions left 0:00:22.079 --> 0:00:25.560 in this country. Number one is podcasting. Number two is 0:00:25.680 --> 0:00:28.320 race car driving. And right now I'm about to attempt 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:32.479 to do both. Well, technically, not driving the race car. 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:34.520 I'll be riding along in the passenger seat. But that's 0:00:34.520 --> 0:00:37.960 a blurry distinction that you should not focus on. What's 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:40.800 really important is that I'm about to fulfill a childhood 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:44.080 dream by getting to drive in a race car at 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:47.839 full speed around Charlotte Motor Speedway. This is going to 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:51.440 be a very very big day for me. Uh and 0:00:52.960 --> 0:00:55.200 you're coming along for it, Thank you very much. We'll 0:00:55.200 --> 0:01:26.720 see how this goes. Yeah, there it is. Hm. I 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:28.960 made it two laps, and I've been sitting in the 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:30.960 car for the last twenty minutes in the parking lot 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:33.440 with my eyes closed, trying not to throw up. Ever since, 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:37.720 that was one of the most violent experiences I've ever 0:01:37.720 --> 0:01:41.280 had in my life. As soon as you get into 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:43.720 the turn, that wall of Asphalle just looks up at 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:47.960 you and you're just pinned into your seat and just like, 0:01:48.360 --> 0:01:52.000 oh God, horrible. I felt like my brain was just 0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:58.920 being squished, um that I could not imagine doing that 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:02.880 for a two hours, three hours just I will never 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:07.280 tolerate someone ship talking Nascar again. All right, let gonna 0:02:07.280 --> 0:02:12.280 see if I get back to this hotel. So it 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:14.160 looks like I'm not cut out for race car driving, 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:17.639 But embarrassing myself on Mike wasn't the only reason I'd 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:20.240 come down to Charlotte. Because not only is North Carolina 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:23.160 the biggest tobacco producer in the US and where Derek's 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:27.520 tobacco came from, it's also the heartland of NASCAR. There's 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:30.560 twelve major tracks within a day's drive, and dozens more 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:34.080 smaller asphalt and dirt ovals. It's also where almost every 0:02:34.200 --> 0:02:38.239 NASCAR team is based, including a small outfit called Motorsports 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:42.960 Business Management, owned and operated by veteran driver Carl Long. 0:02:43.360 --> 0:02:46.160 Are you doing good? Ye? A long time? Yeah, you 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:48.799 just get back from Canada. Yeah. I was on there 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:51.720 for a month. And then Carl longs an old hand 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:53.760 in the world of NASCAR. He's been in the sport 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:56.359 for more than thirty years as a driver, crew chief 0:02:56.480 --> 0:02:59.320 and now as a team owner. It's a lot of 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:02.040 work to keep up with the NASCAR season circus. But 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:04.440 today is a Monday and the closest thing he'll have 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:06.880 to a weekend for a while, so he's got some 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:09.160 time to talk. What you got, what you want to do? 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:11.960 Four time? Miss, we can sit down. I got yes, 0:03:12.040 --> 0:03:14.119 it's word. Yeah. Let me check with the guys out 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:18.359 from Yeah, no quicktion, make sure they're all good. He's 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:23.639 doing a story on Derek. Really yeah. Carl and Derek 0:03:23.680 --> 0:03:26.120 are actually old friends. They go back more than ten 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:28.359 years when they met in the parking lot before race 0:03:28.440 --> 0:03:31.680 in Virginia. Derek and I just was parked beside each 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:34.240 other at the Richmond Speedway and got to talking and 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:36.560 found out we had a lot of things. I grew 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:39.360 up on a tobacco farm, and so I worked on 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:43.200 a on a farm every year. There wasn't any harvesting machines. 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:47.280 It was just all manual labor. And my uncle would 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:49.080 always tell me, is early in the morning, all he 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:51.280 wanted to see was assholes and elbows, just to go 0:03:51.400 --> 0:03:53.920 up the road and hang buy the ground, leave you say. 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:56.720 You know, so you can probably see how Derek and 0:03:56.760 --> 0:03:59.280 Carl became fast friends. And then when we were part 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:02.360 beside each other, like I said, we just laughed and 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:05.160 had had a good time talk on each other. From 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:08.280 what Carl could tell, Derek was the real deal, not 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:10.400 just some rich guy playing dress up on the weekend. 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:14.160 I felt like that as a driver, and him going 0:04:14.200 --> 0:04:17.800 from the petty driving experience too to his truck to 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:21.400 he's racing on his other stuff on ice and just 0:04:22.320 --> 0:04:25.000 he just had a passionate race he wanted to do it. 0:04:25.400 --> 0:04:28.200 At the time, Derek was working with another race team 0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:31.440 and according to Carl, it wasn't a great situation, but 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:34.680 the guy that was kind of managing his team really 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:39.480 uh I guess head champagne tastes would a beer budget 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:42.760 and it was spending a lot. So the people that 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:45.359 he had helped him and didn't have the experience to 0:04:45.560 --> 0:04:48.719 coach him. All they were worried about is could he 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:50.560 write the check for him so they could go and 0:04:50.600 --> 0:04:54.159 go race. It was clear that Derek han ambition and 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:57.120 Carl had the experienced help him on his skills, so 0:04:58.200 --> 0:05:00.839 they shook hands and decided to create their on team, 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:05.680 Motorsports Business Management or MBM for short, the team that 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:09.200 Carl still runs today. There's a million little things you 0:05:09.240 --> 0:05:10.680 have to do in order to get a brand new 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:13.200 team off the ground, but Carl was glad to have 0:05:13.279 --> 0:05:15.919 Derek as a partner. Derek was just one of the 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:20.159 best overall people that you could be around, uh to 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:24.440 help do everything. He wasn't lazy, wasn't selfish. He enjoyed racing, 0:05:24.760 --> 0:05:27.400 He enjoyed drinking. Sometimes. I think he was a professional 0:05:27.400 --> 0:05:29.839 head at some races. He would go he takes some 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:32.719 of my guys out at night. He'd be spring chicken, 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:36.120 ready to go to next day. My guys would be, oh, man, 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:38.680 We've tried to go out with Derek. Oh God, I 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:41.040 don't know how you could drink that much and still function. 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:45.200 You know, he was buying drinks for everybody in the bar, 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:47.760 you know, just having a good time. Within a few 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:51.080 short months, MBM was making a name for itself. Their 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:55.040 crowning achievement came in when Derek raced in New Hampshire 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:57.880 and became the first indigenous driver in the NASCAR Cup 0:05:57.960 --> 0:06:01.400 Series Hoist the Lobster at the end of three hundred 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:06.039 and one lapse from the Hampshire Motor Speed one. But 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:08.360 less than a year after that race, it all came 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:12.000 to a screeching hult when Derek was arrested and Carl 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:15.320 got a phone call from NASCAR. No matter what, Derek 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:20.760 was gonna get banned, and we dissolved Derek's partnership where 0:06:20.800 --> 0:06:30.960 he was no longer an owner of NBA Motorsports from 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:34.680 Campside Media and Dan Patrick Productions. This is running Smoke. 0:06:45.800 --> 0:06:49.880 I'm Roger Gola and this is episode four White Lightning. 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:55.640 Whenever a driver is accused of misconduct, NASCAR acts quickly. 0:06:56.160 --> 0:06:58.640 Officials told Carl that he had seventy two hours to 0:06:58.720 --> 0:07:02.480 completely remove any trace of Derek from MBM Motorsports or 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:05.719 the entire team's eligibility would be in jeopardy. On top 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:09.120 of that, NASCAR and definitely suspended Derek from racing in 0:07:09.160 --> 0:07:12.080 the series. They didn't call me. They didn't. I just 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:15.559 I read it on Basically somebody sent me to link 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:19.720 saying that they suspended me. Not even I didn't even 0:07:19.760 --> 0:07:21.760 go to court yet, you're already banning me and I'll 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:27.240 like it made my uh my debut or in the 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:30.760 in the top tier the Cup Series and then next 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:35.680 Dar all the year after Boom, I'm fucking suspended. We 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:38.520 reached out to NASCAR for comments several times, but they 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:41.880 never responded to our requests. In any case, NASCAR was 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:44.400 not going to stand up in defense of Derek. That 0:07:44.480 --> 0:07:46.800 was an issue for the courts to deal with. Usually 0:07:46.880 --> 0:07:50.560 you're you're innocent until you're proven guilty, right, But right 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:54.280 off the bat they fucking banned me. But being suspended 0:07:54.280 --> 0:07:57.920 from NASCAR, of all sports because of smuggling and tax 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:02.840 of Asian charges, well there's a articular irony there. I mean, 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:05.200 look at NASCAR, I mean it was it was built 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:08.480 off bootlegging, you know, with the moonshiners and all that, 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:11.600 and basically it is the same thing going on over here. 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:20.200 We'll get into all that right after the break. It's 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:23.000 no overstatement to say that without moonshining, there would be 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:26.200 no Nascar. The sport was the product of a unique 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:29.200 combination of V eight engines and high proof liquor that 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:32.080 could have only come together in the American South. And 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:34.240 this week we're gonna take a trip through history to 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:37.560 tell you all about how that cocktail came together. For 0:08:37.600 --> 0:08:40.400 our non Southern listeners, for whom I have nothing but pity, 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:43.760 let me give you a quick lesson on moonshine, white lightning, 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:46.640 clear corn, mountain dew, whatever you wanna call it. It's 0:08:46.640 --> 0:08:50.160 a crystal clear, unaged whiskey made from corn rye, barley, 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:52.640 or whatever else you have on hand. It's made in 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:55.360 small batches by mountain men in bibs and beards who 0:08:55.440 --> 0:08:58.280 work by the light of the moon and backwood shacks. 0:08:58.280 --> 0:09:01.360 But what really separates moon shine from any other liquor 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:06.640 is the fact that it's untaxed, unregulated, and therefore illegal. 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:10.559 Back in the nineteen thirties, when the US government banned alcohol, 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:13.120 moonshine was the only way a lot of people in 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:15.960 America could wet their whistle, which made it a very 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:20.840 lucrative business. Government agents fight hopelessly against illegal liquor. These 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:24.040 homemade stills are about a few of thousands seas than destroyed. 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:28.520 Other thousands produced millions of gallons, and countless hundreds prosper 0:09:28.600 --> 0:09:33.120 in business of bootlegging. But moonshining represents so much more 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:35.720 than some folks making money on the side. For the 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:38.760 people who made shine, it's a symbol of pride and 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:41.640 self reliance, and in that way, it's a lot like 0:09:41.720 --> 0:09:45.319 tobacco on Mohawk territories. For communities that have often been 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:48.240 on the short end of the stick, liquor and cigarettes 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:50.240 offered away for them to stand on their own feet, 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:52.520 even if it meant you were a criminal in the 0:09:52.520 --> 0:09:56.559 eyes of the law making, moonshine was a god given right. 0:09:56.800 --> 0:10:00.160 It was it was tradition, It was family bis this 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:02.880 Neil Thompson as a journalist and the author of Driving 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:05.360 with the Devil about the early days of American racing, 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:08.720 and and the moonshine was was used for many things. 0:10:08.760 --> 0:10:11.480 It was medicine in some cases it was currency. It 0:10:11.559 --> 0:10:15.520 was a homemade craft, and in their view, the government 0:10:15.559 --> 0:10:18.280 had no rights to that. It was their product um 0:10:18.400 --> 0:10:20.200 and there was their right to deliver it wherever they 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:27.160 saw fit. This is where the story of American stock 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:31.840 car racing begins. But delivery is a very polite way 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:35.880 of saying contraband smuggling. And where there's contraband, there's cops. 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:39.320 So moonshiners took their four V eight coops and stiffened 0:10:39.400 --> 0:10:41.559 up the rear springs so when they filled the trunk 0:10:41.559 --> 0:10:44.120 with liquor, it with the squat and look suspicious. They 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:46.520 knew that cops liked to shoot out radiators, so they 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:48.720 put sheet metal and their grills to protect their motors. 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:53.160 Some moonshiners even had James Bond type gadgets that dropped 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:59.839 nails or spilled oil behind you. Even though there was 0:10:59.880 --> 0:11:05.120 an intense captain mouse aspect to this, this chase, this game, UM, 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:07.840 there was also a sense of mutual respect. One of 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:10.200 the guys I talked to UM there was a story 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:13.240 about him once delivering flowers to the hospital bed of 0:11:13.240 --> 0:11:16.280 a revenue agent who he'd out run and left it 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:18.679 a ditch on the side of the road, but knew 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:21.040 he knew the agent had gotten hurt, left him some 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:24.760 flowers and just signed it the coup, meaning his Ford 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:29.200 V eight coup. Henry Ford famously said that auto racing 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:31.720 began five minutes after the second car came off the 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:34.560 production line. I'd be surprised if it took that long 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:36.960 for whiskey runners to get the same idea. They were 0:11:37.040 --> 0:11:40.840 running moonshine, trying to get away from revenue agents, UM, 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:43.800 trying to stay alive and stay out of jail. And 0:11:43.960 --> 0:11:47.000 along the way they learned to drive fast, fix up 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:49.680 their cars to go faster than the revenue agents, and 0:11:49.720 --> 0:11:52.160 then on weekends for fun, they started racing each other. 0:11:52.960 --> 0:11:57.600 Moonshiners would hire young kids to drive for the young, 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:01.600 fearless kids to drive for him. Tom Jensen is the 0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:04.680 Curatorial Affairs director of the NASCAR Hall of Fame and 0:12:04.720 --> 0:12:08.840 a longtime motorsports journalist. And the people who own these 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:12.000 businesses tended to know each other, and one guy would 0:12:12.040 --> 0:12:14.680 say to another, you know, my driver's got the fastest 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:17.400 car in the county, and the other guy would say, no, 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:21.120 my drivers the fastest car in the county. So they 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:24.400 decided to have a race with just the two of them. Well, 0:12:24.480 --> 0:12:27.280 word would get out and some neighbors would show up, 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:30.320 and you know, maybe the next week there would be 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:33.520 three or four guys from the next county over with 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:37.200 their race cars. Stock car racing was radically different than 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:39.480 the sort of racing that Americans have known up until then, 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:42.400 which was something reserved for the ultra wealthy. It was 0:12:42.640 --> 0:12:45.520 sports cars. It was sort of the open wheel cars 0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:49.200 that that you see in Lamands and Formula one and 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:53.280 indie cars, the types of cars that poor southern boy 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:56.840 could never dream of affording. Um And most of those 0:12:57.000 --> 0:13:03.400 earlier car races happen on tracks that were built specifically 0:13:03.440 --> 0:13:06.439 for those races, and most of those races happened up 0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:10.400 North or in the Midwest, stock car racing offered something 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:15.080 totally different. It brought motorsports to the everyman. Teenagers scraped 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:18.280 money together and fixed up junkyard cars. Main street mechanics 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:20.320 would sponsor buddies to turn a few laps down at 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:23.720 the local track down South, where you didn't have any 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:28.800 real professional sports until like the nineteen sixties. Um this 0:13:28.920 --> 0:13:33.160 sort of sports starved part of the country adopted stock 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:35.800 car racing as as its own. You know, it was 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:41.160 truly a home grown sport throughout the South, um modest 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:44.000 in the beginning. For years, stock car racing was just 0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:46.839 a ragtag affair. There were dozens of different race leagues 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:50.439 in competition series, full of shady promoters and hobbist drivers. 0:13:51.160 --> 0:13:54.240 It wasn't until Bill France, an aspiring race or in 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:57.760 Daytona Beach, brought together all the biggest promoters under one 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:01.360 banner that racing really became profess Chinel. France gave it 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:04.960 a name to the National Association for Stock Car Auto 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:08.760 Racing or NASCAR for short and right away, Big Bill 0:14:08.840 --> 0:14:12.760 had a big problem moonshiners. He was trying to build 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:15.720 an above board, legit racing league that was family friendly 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:20.440 and amenable to corporate sponsors. Bootwiggers aren't exactly the crowd 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:22.040 to put on a suit and tie and talk nice 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:24.400 in front of a microphone. But at the same time, 0:14:24.560 --> 0:14:27.600 the moonshiners were the ones winning the races because this 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:30.640 Hall of Famer Junior Johnson once said, nobody ever loves 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:33.640 a car more than a moonshiner does, because if you 0:14:33.680 --> 0:14:36.320 go to a race and lose, you go home. If 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:38.720 you go on a moonshine run and lose, you go 0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:41.920 to jail. Folks like that weren't going to play by 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:44.880 the rules, and Bill France found that out right away. 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:49.360 The winner of the very first NASCAR race ever was 0:14:49.400 --> 0:14:53.440 disqualified for using modified heavy duty rear suspension, a trick 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:56.120 straight out of the bootleggers handbook. You know, I've talked 0:14:56.160 --> 0:14:59.920 to one x moonshiner who who told me, Um, you know, 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:02.360 the best way to get a hillbilly to do something 0:15:02.440 --> 0:15:04.520 is to tell him not to do it. It was 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:08.359 how they were raised to view the government with distrust 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:13.760 and to avoid paying taxes at all costs. Um. So 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:18.040 this this attitude, uh, that was there from the start 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:22.440 of stock car racing. Uh, this sort of nonconformity it 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:24.680 was in the blood of both the moonshiners and in 0:15:24.760 --> 0:15:29.440 turn the NASCAR racers. One of my favorite stories is 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:32.000 there was a track in Georgia, I believe it was 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:36.240 called Middle Georgia Raceway that opened the late sixties, and 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:41.680 shortly after it opened, the FEDS rated it. And underneath 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:49.160 the track there was a entire moonshine operation. There's a 0:15:49.920 --> 0:15:55.000 gallon distillery and they made an illegal liquor down there, 0:15:55.240 --> 0:16:02.600 and um, they arrested the track general manager. They introduced 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:05.240 his evidence, the fact that he had bought three thousand 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:10.120 pounds a yeast some absurd amount, and he said, now 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:13.360 that was for our concession stands, and a jury of 0:16:13.440 --> 0:16:16.640 his peers acquitted him in like a couple of hours. 0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:24.120 There's an old joke in the racing world that sums 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:26.960 it all up. A race car driver reads a rule 0:16:27.000 --> 0:16:30.360 book twice, first to see what it says, and then 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:36.520 again to see what it doesn't say. They would interpret 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:41.320 it like people interpret the Bible. They see what they 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:44.480 want to see. Give you a good example, and again 0:16:44.520 --> 0:16:48.120 we'll go back to Junior Johnson. Rule book says car 0:16:48.120 --> 0:16:50.960 got away thirty four hundred pounds at the start of 0:16:50.960 --> 0:16:53.440 the race. Don't say nothing, Matt would have got away. 0:16:53.560 --> 0:16:57.160 After the race, he would weld hundred pounds a lead 0:16:57.680 --> 0:17:00.040 to the inside of each of the four rims on 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:03.920 his car to make minimum weight, and at the first 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:07.200 pit stop it would take forever to change the tires 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:11.000 because they weighed a hundred and sixty pounds each, but 0:17:11.119 --> 0:17:13.840 from then on his card before hundred pounds lighter than 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:23.160 anyone else's, which technically was not against the rules. By 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:27.120 the sixties and seventies, NASCAR was flourishing under Bill France's leadership. 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:30.200 The racing was more intense, the fans were more committed, 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:33.560 and the racers were more professional. But France still had 0:17:33.600 --> 0:17:37.720 a problem. NASCAR was just a Southern sport, a side 0:17:37.720 --> 0:17:41.560 show to the MLB and NFL. Bill wanted the main stage, 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:44.439 and it took a blizzard and a fist fight to 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:55.320 get him there. Coming up after the break, you're listening 0:17:55.320 --> 0:18:02.679 to Running Smoke. It's February ninety nine and the NASCAR 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:05.720 season is kicking off in Daytona Beach. Usually it's a 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:07.959 race that only Southerners would pay an they attention to, 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:12.400 but this time it was going nationwide. A freak blizzard 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:15.840 had canceled every sporting event in the Northeast, forcing NBC 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:19.480 to put NASCAR in its prime time slot. A sports 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:22.359 starved country tuned into its first stock car race and 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:25.439 the action was intense. Fans in the stands were on 0:18:25.480 --> 0:18:27.840 their feet cheering as drivers came around the front stretch. 0:18:28.240 --> 0:18:30.560 It's the last lap and a side by side battle 0:18:30.560 --> 0:18:34.200 heats up between Donnie Allison and Kaylee Yarborough. Kale's crew 0:18:34.240 --> 0:18:37.560 chief is none other than the bootleggers patron st Junior Johnson. 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:40.159 On the last lap, coming around turn two on the 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:42.399 back stretch, Kale makes a move on Donnie and now 0:18:42.400 --> 0:18:45.000 their neck and neck. Their doors are inches away from 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:47.320 each other as they reached speeds upwards of a hundred 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:52.760 and fifty miles per hour. Folks back home how their 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:55.680 noses pressed up against the TV and silence falls over 0:18:55.680 --> 0:19:00.119 wrapped bus terminals and airport bars across the country, and 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:09.080 then they slide down into the enfields as Richard Petty 0:19:09.119 --> 0:19:11.480 comes from behind and takes the checker flag, winning the 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:16.879 Dayton of five hundred. But while Petty is taking his 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:19.919 victory lap, the two drivers on the infield grass climb 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:24.280 out of their cars, fight and Donnie Alie, you couldn't 0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:29.439 write a better finish, the most amazing astoonishing. For the 0:19:29.480 --> 0:19:32.080 first time in its history, NASCAR was now on the 0:19:32.160 --> 0:19:37.560 national map. Sponsors wanted in, and NASCAR provided an incredible 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:40.480 opportunity for any company that wanted eyeballs on their brand. 0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:43.560 What's better than a billboard moving at a hundred and fifty. 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:47.600 Money flowed into the sport and the race winnings went 0:19:47.680 --> 0:19:51.679 even higher. So competition got tougher, drivers got better, and 0:19:51.760 --> 0:19:56.639 mechanics got more creative. Instead of dumpster diving in junkyards, 0:19:56.920 --> 0:20:00.960 engineers developed new exotic, purpose built hearts for their engines 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:04.199 and suspension systems. They took the sport out of the 0:20:04.240 --> 0:20:06.679 hands of back Aird Mechanics and brought it into the 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:10.960 space age innovation and rule ending was getting to be 0:20:11.000 --> 0:20:14.240 an expensive necessity for anyone that wanted to remain competitive. 0:20:14.800 --> 0:20:19.199 I think where the real escalation took place was in 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:22.160 the early to mid nine nineties when it it kind 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:25.879 of became an arms race of who could outspend the 0:20:25.920 --> 0:20:29.240 other to try to gain an advantage. Because what had 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:33.480 happened is there were fewer and fewer places to get 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:38.720 an advantage, and there were smaller advantages to get. NASCAR's 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:41.240 job as a governing body was to level the playing 0:20:41.280 --> 0:20:44.080 field and keep it as fair as possible, no matter 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:47.040 how much money teams were putting into their cars. But 0:20:47.560 --> 0:20:50.160 racers will still look for every advantage they can get. 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:53.919 For instance, when I first got into the sport in 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:57.359 the late nineties, was the first time they started hiring 0:20:57.440 --> 0:21:03.439 quote unquote professional pit crew NASCAR teams. The top teams 0:21:03.440 --> 0:21:09.000 went from having fat, middle aged guys who were mechanics 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:15.679 also double doing the pit stops, to creating recruiting programs 0:21:15.720 --> 0:21:20.960 where they go to college campuses and recruit athletes who 0:21:21.000 --> 0:21:25.080 played on football and basketball teams. And so they replaced 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:27.600 the forty year old guy with a beer belly with 0:21:27.760 --> 0:21:31.239 a twenty two year old kid who was who was 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:35.480 cut and fit and athletic, and they were paying these 0:21:35.480 --> 0:21:38.200 guys a lot of money, and things like that just 0:21:38.200 --> 0:21:41.960 just drove the costs way up. At that time, Spending 0:21:42.040 --> 0:21:47.480 money doesn't guarantee you will be successful. Not spending money 0:21:47.560 --> 0:21:51.760 guarantees you will not be successful. As the sport got 0:21:51.760 --> 0:21:55.760 more expensive, it became more exclusive, It became harder and 0:21:55.880 --> 0:21:58.720 harder for blue collar guys to find success. And it 0:21:58.760 --> 0:22:02.120 became easier for well funded teams to outmuscle smaller outfits 0:22:02.119 --> 0:22:04.960 on the track. A few people understand how difficult it 0:22:05.040 --> 0:22:07.440 is to compete in the sport better than Carl Long, 0:22:07.720 --> 0:22:10.920 Derek's old business partner. He knows just how much every 0:22:10.960 --> 0:22:13.000 dollar counts when you're racing at the back of the pack. 0:22:13.520 --> 0:22:15.600 It's ass and I and on the dollar amounts just 0:22:15.720 --> 0:22:18.320 and I haven't even started adding up for this weekend. 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:21.600 I might even actually have two sheets I do. I 0:22:21.640 --> 0:22:24.520 was just figuring it. So so here's here's something for you. 0:22:24.920 --> 0:22:26.800 This is just to tell you what I spent at 0:22:26.800 --> 0:22:30.720 Atlanta in exfinity. The rap on the car was fifteen 0:22:30.800 --> 0:22:33.480 hundred bucks, and that's cheap. We spent thirteen thousand, six 0:22:33.560 --> 0:22:37.000 hundred times spent in hotels for one night, bands four 0:22:37.040 --> 0:22:39.960 hundred nstry fee was two hundred Fuel just to put 0:22:39.960 --> 0:22:42.600 in my tractor to get down there was fifteen hundred bucks. 0:22:42.600 --> 0:22:44.960 And back food and drinks and our coolers two hundred bucks. 0:22:45.560 --> 0:22:48.080 Sixty for box of lug nuts that you just used 0:22:48.080 --> 0:22:50.480 once to throw away to rent the engines was thirty 0:22:50.480 --> 0:22:54.480 thou dollars pit bonuses that was labor just for the weekend, 0:22:54.600 --> 0:22:56.640 it was twenty thousand, five hundred. I have to rent. 0:22:56.680 --> 0:22:59.000 I picked guns, that was seven hundred, was three hundred 0:22:59.040 --> 0:23:02.200 bucks transmit ation with six all At all, Carl spent 0:23:02.280 --> 0:23:05.160 more than eighty thousand dollars to run a single race 0:23:05.240 --> 0:23:08.560 that weekend. And that's not even counting truck payments, insurance 0:23:08.600 --> 0:23:11.800 and rent. So I'm I'm in a hole on a 0:23:11.840 --> 0:23:14.439 good weekend, finishing eleventh with no damage. I'm in a 0:23:14.440 --> 0:23:17.920 whole fifty bucks as it is. It's like the old 0:23:17.920 --> 0:23:21.280 timers say, how do you make a small fortune, Well, 0:23:21.520 --> 0:23:24.919 you take a large fortune and you go racing. For me. 0:23:25.040 --> 0:23:28.560 At my my level, the most important talent a driver 0:23:28.680 --> 0:23:30.440 can have is somebody to write a check to put 0:23:30.480 --> 0:23:33.320 him in a seat. The most important talent is to 0:23:33.359 --> 0:23:37.040 be able to write a check. In less than fifty years, 0:23:37.280 --> 0:23:39.800 NASCAR went from a blue collar sport where shade tree 0:23:39.840 --> 0:23:43.120 mechanics could raise their sedans on Sundays to a multi 0:23:43.240 --> 0:23:47.200 billion dollar enterprise with tracks across the country, race cars 0:23:47.200 --> 0:23:50.119 worth half a million dollars, and drivers who were trained 0:23:50.119 --> 0:23:52.919 to race as soon as they can walk. Back in 0:23:52.960 --> 0:23:54.800 the day, pit lane would have been full of pot 0:23:54.840 --> 0:23:59.160 bellied mechanics, tuning carburetors with their pocket knives. Now it's 0:23:59.200 --> 0:24:02.199 full of movie star celebrity owners and more computers than 0:24:02.240 --> 0:24:05.760 mission control. For a team like MBM that was barely 0:24:05.800 --> 0:24:09.280 scraping by on its best weekends, Derek was a godsend. 0:24:10.040 --> 0:24:12.000 It's tough not to imagine how far they would have 0:24:12.000 --> 0:24:15.440 come over the last ten years. If Derek hadn't been arrested, 0:24:16.119 --> 0:24:20.480 we would be further up the uh probably further food chain. 0:24:20.560 --> 0:24:23.439