Play at Sprout

Archive for March 31st, 2010

Stock car racing was really born out of the desire of owners of customized stock (meaning: ‘off the sales lot’) cars to show off their vehicles, craftsmanship and driving expertise. The need to ‘soup up’ these stock cars came from the wish to escape the law enforcement agencies pursuing them when they were running moonshine or put another way, bootlegging.

For the period of Prohibition, a lot of moonshine whiskey was being made in remote regions of the Appalachians and in particular the Allegheny Mountains, from where it was taken by private carriers in their own stock cars often to the southern states. Many of these drivers souped up their cars in order to have more chance of escape.