This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human. Liberty has never been just a word to we Americans. It has guided every one of our endeavors for the past 250 years, and now it takes form in a new way. The 2026 Semi-Quincentennial Coin and Metal Program from the United States Mint.
It celebrates the founding ideals that have long shaped our coinage. Available one year only, this historic collection features new coin designs, limited edition releases, and reissues. Shop new official coins at usmint.gov forward slash semi-q. That's usmint.gov/slash S-E-M-I-Q. I turned off news altogether.
I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything. It's the rage bait. It feels like it's trying to divide people. If we got clear facts, maybe we can calm down a little. NBC News brings you clear reporting.
Let's meet at the facts. Let's move forward from there. and BC News reporting for America. This July 4th, come celebrate at America's Block Party, hosted by America 250. America's Block Party is a camp miss 4th of July concert happening at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
Experience music performances by major artists, patriotic tributes, and the kickoff to Giving Forth, helping to make July 4th the largest day of giving in American history. It's more than just fireworks. Join this landmark celebration and get your America's Block Party tickets now for $17.76 at America250.org/slash LA. What's up, y'all? Summer's got a different tempo.
Everything's a little looser, brighter. One plan turns into another. You hear something, you stay a little longer.
Next thing you know, you're somewhere you didn't plan to be. It's those in-between moments. That's where the ideas hit. conversations stretch out, little memories sneak up on you.
Sometimes it's just about what's in your hand. that color. That chill, the new tropical butterfly refresher from Starbucks. guava and passion fruit flavors with ango pineapple flavored pearls. Yeah.
That feels like summer before you even taste it. Funny how one small stop becomes the best part of the day. Start your summer rhythm. with Starbucks. Try the new Tropical Butterfly Refresher from Starbucks.
This is Tony Ao from The Real Report with Tony A.O. and Uncle Murder. You ever notice how everything keeps going up? Rent, streaming, even extra social at your favorite burrito spot. But with Boost Mobile, you don't have to play the Will This Go Up Soon game.
Boost Mobile offers an unlimited talk, text, and data plan at a price that'll never go up. It's the same price you'll pay for life. Switch now for unlimited wireless at a price that'll never go up only at Boost Mobile. After 30 gigabytes, customers may experience slower speeds. Customers will pay $25 a month as long as they remain active on the Boost Unlimited plan.
This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people. And to search for the Our American Stories podcast, go to the iHeartRadio app. or wherever you get your podcast. Long before NASCAR's rampant commercialism lurks a distant history of dark secrets. that have been carefully hidden from view.
Until now. Here to tell the true story behind NASCAR's hard scrabble, Moonshine-Fueled Origins, is Neil Thompson, author of Driving with the Devil.
Southern Moonshine, Detroit wheels, and the birth of NASCAR. Let's take a listen. The idea for the story of Driving with the Devil started pretty soon after the attacks of 9-11. My wife and I were living in Baltimore at that time. I was working for the Baltimore Sun newspaper.
We were ready for a change. We were ready to move somewhere else and have a different kind of lifestyle. And at that same time, I found myself thinking a lot about a new book idea. I had just published my first book, Biography of the Astronaut Alan Shepard, and found myself drawn to NASCAR, but not NASCAR per se. Really, what I wanted to explore was where did this come from?
Where did this fascination with Cars spinning around an oval at 200 miles an hour. Where did this start? Where did it really start? Began digging into sort of the origins of the sport itself. That led me to learn a little bit about Bill France, whose family at that time owned the entire sport, which was a shock to me.
But every version of the origin story of NASCAR that I came across started with Bill France in about 1948, 1949. Many of these histories, articles, and books started that year and didn't go back prior to that and explain how it got to that point. It didn't just come into existence from nothing that year, and it didn't come into existence surely because of this one man, Bill France.
So, what I really wanted to do was go back, go deep, and find out who are the other characters who played a role in creating this sport before it was even known as NASCAR. And so my wife and I, after 9-11, about a year afterwards, decided let's move south. Let's go live in the south where this story takes place.
So we moved to North Carolina, to Asheville, North Carolina, and I spent the next couple of years driving throughout the South to Florida and Atlanta, northern Georgia, and across North Carolina to track down the true pioneers of NASCAR, some of whom were still alive at that time, thankfully. Yeah. My research led me, thankfully, to one of the overlooked pioneers of the entire sport, a guy named Raymond Parks, who was living in Atlanta at that time. He was in his late 80s, early 90s, still showing up for work every day at the liquor store that he owned in North Atlanta, still dressed in his suit and tie with a dapper hat. And I was pointed toward Raymond as the guy who was really the overlooked hero of the early days of NASCAR, someone who never fully got the credit he deserved for playing a vital role in bringing that sport to life.
When I first got to know him though, he didn't want to talk about it, largely because the origins of the sport, at least as far as he was concerned, were directly tied to the moonshining business. Raymond was a successful moonshiner. He actually started moonshining at age 14. Got to know another North Georgia moonshiner who offered him a job. Raymond grew up poor on a farm in North Georgia outside Dawsonville.
His dad was a drunk. There were 16 kids in the household, and Raymond, who was one of the eldest, one day just walked off the farm at age 14 and started working as a moonshiner's apprentice. He spent a little time in jail after that, but learned the ropes and over time became an incredibly successful moonshiner himself. Running Moonshine, making moonshine. Later, he was so successful that he hired his cousins to do the driving for him.
And that whole enterprise of making and delivering moonshine is what eventually led to stock car racing. When I first met Raymond, though, he didn't want to talk about all that. He felt like that was part of the past. He was, you know, kind of a modest, quiet guy, at least at the age when I met him.
So I just kept showing up at his office saying, okay, you don't want to talk about it. That's fine. I'll come back next week and we'll just chat about other things. Little by little, I kind of earned his confidence, and little by little, he started opening up to me and started sharing with me the story of his role in creating NASCAR. And it was just a remarkable story of dirt poor North Georgia kids trying to find a better life for themselves.
You know, so many of them grew up poor, and their prospects were to continue working on their family farm or maybe get a job at the local mill for a few dollars more. But a lot of these kids wanted more. They wanted adventure, they wanted escape. Once they got introduced to cars and moonshining, they wanted speed and money and a different version of success. And moonshining and then stock car racing gave them that.
It gave them something that they hadn't previously had access to. And Raymond is a perfect example of that. But I'll never forget. Being in his office one day, when he reluctantly pulls out a couple of old photo albums. And starts leafing through them.
And I got shivers up my spine because he starts showing me photos that. Really told the story of early stock car racing and the early days of NASCAR, and told the story of Raymond Parks' role in creating that sport.
So he's showing me pictures of old races, terrible car wrecks. Photos of the corpse of his cousin Lloyd C., who was killed in a moonshining accident. Photos of Red Vog, the foulmouth mechanic who worked on Raymond Parks' cars, both his moonshine cars and later his stock cars and his race cars. These photos were just a thrilling sort of recapturing of that moment in time when NASCAR didn't even exist. It was just sort of this humble sport where these moonshiner kids were having fun on the weekends racing each other out of cow pastures.
And little by little, those raggedy races evolved into what we later came to know as stock car racing and then NASCAR. Mm-hmm. And you've been listening to author Neil Thompson tell the story of his own story about what prompted him to write this book, which was, well, with so many writers, just a question. How did NASCAR really start? How did this sport start before there was ever NASCAR and this legend named Bill France?
It all started with moonshiner kids racing each other out in cow pastures. When we come back, more of the story of Moonshine Runners and the birth of NASCAR. Here on Our American Story. Lee Habib here, the host of Our American Stories. Every day on this show, we're bringing inspiring stories from across this great country.
Stories from our big cities and small towns. But we truly can't do this show without you. Our stories are free to listen to, but they're not free to make. If you love what you hear, go to ouramericanstories.com and click the donate button. Give a little, give a lot.
Go to ouramericanstories.com and give. Liberty has never been just a word to we Americans. It has guided every one of our endeavors for the past 250 years. And now it takes form in a new way. The 2026 Semi-Quincentennial Coin and Metal Program from the United States Mint.
It celebrates the founding ideals that have long shaped our coinage. Available one year only, this historic collection features new coin designs, limited edition releases, and reissues. Shop new official coins at usmint.gov forward slash semi-q. That's usmint.gov/slash S-E-M-I-Q. This July 4th, come celebrate at America's Block Party, hosted by America 250.
America's Block Party is a camp miss 4th of July concert happening at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Experience music performances by major artists, patriotic tributes, and the kickoff to Giving Forth, helping to make July 4th the largest day of giving in American history. It's more than just fireworks. Join this landmark celebration. And get your America's Glock Party tickets now for $17.76 at America250.org/slash LA.
I turned off news altogether. I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything. It's the rage bait. It feels like it's trying to divide people. If we got clear facts, maybe we could calm down a little.
NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC News reporting for America. This is Tony A.O.
from The Real Report with Tony A.O. and Uncle Murder. You ever notice how everything keeps going up? Rent's going up, streaming services are going up. Even your favorite burrito spot suddenly thinks Salsa should cost extra.
But with Boost Mobile, you and your phone bill don't have to play the Will This Go Up Soon game because Boost Mobile has an unlimited talk, text, and data plan at a price that'll never go up. It's the same price you'll pay for life, meaning you're set to never worry about your bill increasing again for as long as you're on the plan. While the world keeps finding new ways to nickel and dime you, Boost Mobile gives you unlimited wireless at one set price for life. Imagine something in your budget actually staying the same. You'll pay the same for unlimited wireless when you're posting mirror selfies in your 20s and when you're posting mirror selfies in retirement.
Some things never change. Switch now for unlimited wireless at a price that'll never go up, only at Boost Mobile. After 30 gigabytes, customers may experience slower speeds. Customers will pay $25 a month as long as they remain active on the Boost Unlimited plan. Mm-hmm.
Hi, it's Karen in Georgia from My Favorite Murder. We cruised around LA in the Hyundai Ionic 5 and dove into the fascinating life of actress and inventor Hedy Lamar. Want the full story? Take a listen. Hetty, she starts dating Howard Hughes, the aviation tycoon.
Do you know a lot about him? I mean, I watch The Aviator, so I know everything Leonardo DiCaprio has allowed me to know about him, but incredible innovator. Right. She says he's a, quote, very strange man. Oh.
But they do get along really well. Give us exams, I know. They do. get along intellectually. And in fact, she helps him design a faster plane.
She takes a look at what he's designed. It's got these square wings, and she's like, that doesn't make sense. And so she finds the fastest bird and the fastest fish and sketches out a drawing of like what the two would look like as a plane. And that becomes the plane that we know today. And he calls her a genius.
Check out our new episode, Spotlight and Groundbreaking Innovators like Hedi Lamar and Billie Jean King. Presented by the Hyundai Ionic 5. Goodbye. And we continue with Our American Stories and Neil Thompson, author of Driving with the Devil.
Southern Moonshine, Detroit Wheels, and the birth of NASCAR. Let's return to Neil with more of the story. Mm. The moonshine that these guys were making and delivering was essentially corn whiskey. It was a version of the whiskey that had come to America from the Irish and Scots-Irish immigrants who came here and then sort of gravitated toward the south and ended up in the hills and hollers of North Carolina and Georgia and other southern states, where a lot of these farmers learned that by.
Growing corn and turning that corn into whiskey, they could make more by selling the liquid product of that agricultural output rather than just becoming straight-up farmers. And so moonshine became an important component of the economy of the South going way back to the 1800s and then on into the early 1900s. There were tax issues. You know, the U.S. government over time kept making attempts to tax this product, and obviously the moonshiners resisted that, which is what led to sort of this cat and mouse game that evolved between the moonshiners.
delivering their agricultural product as they viewed it to market or to their customers in the cities for the most part. And then the tax agents, the revenue agents, trying to track them down and arrest them and charge them with tax fraud.
So the term moonshine came from the practice of making this whiskey in the dead of night to avoid detection, to avoid setting off any alarms by revenue agents seeing the smoke rise from these stills that were mainly set up deep in the woods next to a stream. They needed fresh water for these things.
So by operating in the middle of the night under the moonlight, that's where the term moonshine evolved from. And then the term bootlegger came from the concept that by one of the ways that these guys would try and hide their liquor would be in a flask that was hidden inside their boot. And in time, the term bootlegger evolved just to sort of encompass all of the efforts to make and sell illegal whiskey throughout the South and elsewhere. In time, these moonshiners learned that the best means of transporting their product, the moonshine, jars of moonshine packed tightly into crates, was a Ford V8 coupe.
Sort of the explosion of the moonshining trade in the early decades of the 1900s coincided with the evolution of the automobile.
So you see the Ford V8s becoming more and more sophisticated. The moonshiners realized this was the perfect car for delivering moonshine because it had a great suspension, it was fast, and it was easy to work on.
So you also see the beginnings of car mechanics. who later became race car mechanics. Figuring out how to take apart Ford's engines and put them back together and add modifications and bore out the cylinders and do these other things to make them. even faster than they were meant to be, and even more sort of solid and reliable than they were designed to be. One, two, three.
I, through Raymond Parks, got to become acquainted with his trusted mechanic, Red Vogt, who had a garage in downtown Atlanta and was sort of a mad scientist when it came to Ford's, in particular, other cars as well, but mainly Ford's. You know, he would try little weird modifications that no one else had thought of with the exhaust and the engine and the ratio of air to fuel. He was just a mad genius and learned to make these cars go faster than they were ever meant to go. He also on the side sometimes worked for the cops and the revenue agents, but didn't put as much effort into their cars as he did, the moonshiners and those cars. And so, little by little, these cars, the drivers are learning to drive them faster, the mechanics are making them go faster, and then on weekends, a lot of these moonshiners start getting together to race each other.
See who has the fastest moonshining car.
Some of the early races were incredibly modest. They were just. at a cow field somewhere or a field, farmer's field, and one car would go out and sort of tear up an oval in the grass and that would be the racetrack. That was it. They'd line up, they'd race each other and just for bragging rights they would see who had the fastest car.
In time these races Started to attract crowds. I mean, there weren't any professional sports in the South at that time. It would take years before the first professional sports team, the Atlanta Braves, came to Atlanta in 1965.
So in the 20s, 30s, and 40s, there were college sports, but not really the type of sport where you go to an auditorium and watch a game or a stadium and watch a game. Once these stock car races started getting up and underway and word spread and newspapers started covering these events, then they did start to attract crowds. You know, they put up bleachers next to the oval track. They started building concessions and savvy businessmen started to learn how to make a little bit of money off these, putting a fence around the whole thing and charging admission fees.
So what these early races were, you know, we called NASCAR stock car racing today, but at that time these stock cars really were just. Off-the-rack cars that anyone could buy at their local dealer. You know, that's where the term came from: stock. They were supposed to be just. The stock that came with the car, no modifications.
Of course, that concept of being, quote, strictly stock was thrown out the window, you know, right off the bat. Because of these modifications that the moonshine mechanics started making to the cars, very quickly these quote-unquote stock cars became highly modified, highly customized cars that bore, at least on the outside, some resemblance to the cars you'd see on the dealer's lot, but on the inside were very different machines altogether.
So by looking exactly like any other car that your parents would drive to church that Sunday, these cars were intended to look normal so that they didn't attract the attention of the revenue agents, so that they could fit in once they got to town. But again, under the hood, that engine was way more powerful than any regular stock car that anyone else in the neighborhood had. Late 1830s into 1940, the sport's progressing, and Raymond Parks is now becoming. What in future years would be described as the first team owner of stock car racing. He kind of pulls together.
Two of his cousins, handsome Roy Hall and quiet Lloyd C., who were both moonshine drivers for him, and they are just wonderful drivers because they've learned how to drive on the back roads of Georgia to escape the revenue agents.
So those two are part of Raymond Parks' team, as is Red Vote the mechanic.
So together, this team starts traveling through the South, visiting other races and having enormous success as the sport is getting up and running. Unfortunately, though, Roy Hall is a bit of a scamp. He's always getting in trouble, spends time in jail. And then Lloyd C., who is much quieter and sort of a good kid, gets caught up in this bizarre moonshining argument with one of his cousins who shoots and kills him. And Lloyd C.
is dead sometime in 1940. And then a year later, the entire sport comes grinding to a halt as America gets involved in World War II. A lot of the characters in my book and in the story of the evolution of NASCAR spent time serving in World War II. Raymond Parks served at the Battle of the Bulge. But when these guys come back home, most of them to the south, and start to pick up the pieces of stock car racing.
and they came back very hungry to get back on the racetrack and Take the sport to the next level. At this time, we get introduced to some of the new characters on the scene, one of whom is named Red Byron. There were two Reds in this book, Red Vote and Red Byron.
So Red Byron served in a B-24 airplane, mainly serving up on the Aleutian Islands off the Alaskan coast. His plane gets shot down, among many that were shot down at that time, and they sort of crash land, and Red Byron ends up with just a ruined left leg. Shrapnel. The doctors actually wanted to amputate his leg, and he said, no, don't touch it. I'm a race car driver, I need that leg.
And you've been listening to Neil Thompson tell a heck of a story. Moonshine was basically corn whiskey, he said. And let's face it, the farmers could make more money selling a liquefied version of their crop than the actual crop. And moonshining explodes because, well, automobile production explodes in this country too, and leave it to men and their toys.
Soon, well, guys are modifying these cars. To well, outrun federales, revenue agents, and frankly, to just outrun themselves and have fun. Pretty soon they're competing in cow pastures, and the next thing you know, people are showing up because, well, the South had no professional sports. This became the sport of the South. World War II comes, so many of these guys put on a different suit and go and fight for their country, only to come back hungrier for the action and for the sport they created.
When we come back, More of this remarkable story, Moonshine Runners and the Birth of NASCAR, here. on Our American Stories. Liberty has never been just a word to we Americans. It has guided every one of our endeavors for the past 250 years. And now it takes form in a new way.
The 2026 Semi-Quincentennial Coin and Metal Program from the United States Mint. It celebrates the founding ideals that have long shaped our coinage. Available one year only, this historic collection features new coin designs, limited edition releases, and reissues. Shop new official coins at usmint.gov forward slash semi-q. That's usmint.gov/slash S-E-M-I-Q.
This July 4th, come celebrate at America's Block Party, hosted by America 250. America's Block Party is a Camp Miss Fourth of July concert happening at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Experience music performances by major artists, patriotic tributes, and the kickoff to Giving Forth, helping to make July 4th the largest day of giving in American history. It's more than just fireworks. this landmark celebration and get your America's Block Party tickets now for $17.76 at america250.org slash la I turned off news altogether.
I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything. It's the rage bait. It feels like it's trying to divide people. If we got clear facts, maybe we could calm down a little. NBC News brings you clear reporting.
Let's meet at the facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC News reporting for America. This is Tony AO from The Real Report with Tony A.O. and Uncle Murder.
You ever notice how everything keeps going up? Rent's going up, streaming services are going up. Even your favorite burrito spot suddenly thinks Salsa should cost extra. But with Boost Mobile, you and your phone bill don't have to play the Will This Go Up Soon game because Boost Mobile has an unlimited talk, text, and data plan at a price that'll never go up. It's the same price you'll pay for life, meaning you're set to never worry about your bill increasing again for as long as you're on the plan.
While the world keeps finding new ways to nickel and dime you, Boost Mobile gives you unlimited wireless at one set price for life. Imagine something in your budget actually staying the same. You'll pay the same for unlimited wireless when you're posting mirror selfies in your 20s and when you're posting mirror selfies in retirement.
Some things never change. Switch now for unlimited wireless at a price that'll never go up, only at Boost Mobile. After 30 gigabytes, customers may experience slower speeds. Customers will pay $25 a month as long as they remain active on the Boost Unlimited plan. Mm-hmm.
Hi, it's Karen in Georgia from My Favorite Murder. We cruised around LA in the Hyundai Ionic 5 and dove into the fascinating life of actress and inventor Hedi Lamar. Want the full story? Take a listen. Hetty, she starts dating Howard Hughes, the aviation tycoon.
Do you know a lot about him? I mean, I watch The Aviator, so I know everything Leonardo DiCaprio has allowed me to know about him, but incredible innovator. Right. She says he's a, quote, very strange man. But they do get along really well.
Give us examples. I know. They do. get along intellectually. And in fact, she helps him design a faster plane.
She takes a look at what he's designed. It's got these square wings, and she's like, that doesn't make sense. And so she finds the fastest bird and the fastest fish and sketches out a drawing of like what the two would look like as a plane. And that becomes the plane that we know today. And he calls her a genius.
Check out our new episode, Spotlighting Groundbreaking Innovators like Hedi Lamar and Billie Jean King. Presented by the Hyundai Ionic 5. Goodbye. And we continue with our American stories, and Neil Thompson, author of Driving with the Devil.
Southern Moonshine, Detroit Wheels, and the birth of NASCAR. Let's continue with the story.
So Red Byron, because he had this damaged leg, discovered early on once he was back on the track that he couldn't drive the way he was used to driving because his left leg didn't have strength and he just couldn't maneuver the clutch pedal the way he needed to to be competitive.
So he talked to Red Vote about it, and they came up with a fix, which was for Red Vote to weld. two pins onto the clutch pedal.
so that Red Byron, whose leg was often in a brace, could lift up his left leg and put the boot of his left leg Into this space between these two pins on the clutch pedal, and then when he needed to change gears, instead of putting pressure on that leg, which didn't have much strength to it, he would pivot the bottom half of his body, which would allow him to depress and release the clutch pedal and change gears. I don't think Red Vogt or Raymond Parks thought it would work, but in time, Red Byron got used to it and realized: you know, this works, I can do it, and he started to win race after race after race. As we get into 1948 and stock car racing is really up and running and NASCAR is a formal organization now, Red Byron becomes the first champion of that first year of NASCAR.
Some people look at 1949 as the more official first year of NASCAR because that year they implemented new standards for these strictly stock stock cars. But Red Byron wins that year as well.
So the first two years of NASCAR's existence were won by this crippled war veteran with a bad leg that was essentially strapped into his clutch pedal, could barely walk, but could win race after race and become champion two years in a row. The cast of characters at this time is just super colorful and bizarre. You know, guys with names like Goober and Soapy and Speedy and One Eye. But Red Byron was different from that. He was a little bit nerdy.
He was thoughtful. He was a big reader. He was quieter. He wasn't a big partier or drinker like some of the other guys were. He didn't get into fights like many of them did.
But behind the wheel, he was, again, fearless and an incredible competitor. As the sport continues to find its footing again after World War II, you get into a number of races through 1946, but 1947 is when it really starts to pick up speed again. The end of 1947 is when a group of racers, Raymond Parks, Red Vogt, Red Byron, and then Bill France, who was based in Daytona Beach, they all get together down in Daytona Beach, sort of called there by Bill France, to have a meeting to figure out. How are we gonna Organize this sport now that we're back up and running. What are the rules?
What's the point system? Who's going to oversee these different races and kind of make things a little bit more consistent and cohesive to compete with other organizations that were trying to oversee different types of racing at that time, like the AAA?
So there's this famous meeting that occurs in December of 1947, and a lot of these drivers, M. Raymond Parks, the moonshine runner, turned businessman, they come up with a system of rules and create an actual sport, National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing. The name came from Red Vogt, the mechanic, who never fully got credit for the role he played in. Figuring out what the rules were and coming up with that name and the acronym. But at the end of that meeting, December of 1947, it was actually two days at the end of the second day of the meeting, Bill France had himself named president of NASCAR.
A lot of the other guys said, Yeah, go ahead, Bill, you go ahead and run it. We're not interested, we just want to race and make money and go fast. Bill France was a little bit more business-minded and also a little bit power-hungry. And essentially, had himself named the president of NASCAR, and over the next couple of years, he would end up becoming the full owner of the entire sport, which subsequently would be owned by his family for many decades moving forward. And I think a lot of the early drivers and others who were involved in the sport, including Raymond Parks, because I talked to him about it, felt betrayed by France.
They were all in it together, but France kind of took over and ran with it and pushed them all aside. And when the sport started to become even more popular than any of them could have imagined and started to make some real money, none of the early pioneers and actual founders of the sport saw any of that money or got any benefit from the role they played. One dynamic that was part of stock car racing from the very beginning was. Trying to get racers to follow any kind of rules. You know, one way to get a hillbilly to do something is to tell him not to do it.
And that sort of unspoken rule applied to a lot of the limits that NASCAR tried to place on what drivers could and couldn't do. You know, if they told them to drive with a seatbelt, they would drive without a seatbelt. If they told them, you know, go easy on the other guy's car, they would slam into the other guy's car. It really was a wild and often lawless period of time for stock car racing. And this is something that Bill France over time tried to clean up and get racers to toe the line and to follow the rules.
But because so many of the early racers were moonshiners and were sort of these rebellious southern boys, Bill France had a really hard time keeping them in line. And I think over time that became sort of a tension in the sport and part of the dynamic. Part of what fans loved, which was rebellious drivers breaking the rules. And then on the other hand, you have the official NASCAR folks led by Bill France trying to tighten things up and make things cleaner and more formalized and more family-friendly. And I think that tension continued for decades to come.
And now, probably that rebellious aspect of the sport is mostly gone. Moving ahead to more recent times, NASCAR's fan base doubled in the 1990s and continued to grow at 10 or more percent per year. For a period of time, it was the fastest-growing sport in America, rising to number two. And so much of the sport became about marketing. Revenues averaged $3 billion a year and were on the rise.
NASCAR TV ratings are double those of baseball, basketball, and hockey. Half of NASCAR's viewers are women today, and NASCAR events, the races themselves, are just Wildly popular bacchanals, you know, just attendance of, you know, 1,000 to 200,000 at some of these races, mass of people showing up for these races and staying there for five days in a row, well beyond, before and after, you know, a few hours of the big left turn during race day. prime-time viewership on not just ESPN, but network sports. And the drivers of today are millionaires. You know, they're living in mansions throughout the South.
They're celebrities. They're superstars. They date supermodels. Walk up and down any supermarket and you see NASCAR logos and ads emblazoned on just about every package you can find.
So it's just exploded, which to me is remarkable that it started from such humble roots. with just these poor southern boys trying to have some fun. And a terrific job on the production by Greg Hengler. And a special thanks to Neil Thompson, author of Driving with the Devil, Southern Moonshine, Detroit Wheels, and the Birth of NASCAR. And boy, we meet some real characters.
Fred Byron comes to mind. Injured in flight combat in the Aleutian Islands in World War II, and nearly crippled. he still manages to win the unofficial and first official NASCAR championship. And that meeting in 1947, two days in Daytona Beach, is where NASCAR gets formed. They were trying to solve a problem, getting the drivers to follow the rules.
No simple task when you're dealing with a bunch of wild, rebellious southern boy. Bill France managed to do that? To some he's a hero, to others well, sort of a goat. Either way, NASCAR is permanently changed, now one of the top grossing sports in the country, and it routinely beats in the ratings baseball and football. Who could have ever imagined?
The story of NASCAR, moonshine, and so much more. In a way, the story of America here on our American stories. Liberty has never been just a word to we Americans. It has guided every one of our endeavors for the past 250 years. And now it takes form in a new way.
The 2026 Semi-Quincentennial Coin and Metal Program from the United States Mint. It celebrates the founding ideals that have long shaped our coinage. Available one year only, this historic collection features new coin designs, limited edition releases, and reissues. Shop new official coins at usmint.gov forward slash semi-q. That's usmint.gov/slash S-E-M-I-Q.
This July 4th, Come celebrate at America's Block Party, hosted by America 250. America's Block Party is a camp missed 4th of July concert happening at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Experience music performances by major artists, patriotic tributes, and the kickoff to Giving Forth, helping to make July 4th the largest day of giving in American history. It's more than just fireworks. Join this landmark celebration and get your America's Block Party tickets now for $17.76 at America250.org slash LA.
Hi, it's Karen in Georgia from My Favorite Murder. We cruised around LA in the Hyundai Ionic 5 and dove into the fascinating life of actress and inventor Hedi Lamar. Want the full story? Take a listen. She starts dating Howard Hughes.
And in fact, she helps him design a faster plane. So she finds the fastest bird and the fastest fish and sketches out a drawing of what the two would look like as a plane. And that becomes the plane that we know today. And he calls her a genius. Check out our new episode, Spotlighting Groundbreaking Innovators like Hedi Lamar and Billie Jean King.
Presented by the Hyundai Ionic 5. Goodbye. Running a business shouldn't feel like surviving a software group project. One app for accounting, another for inventory, another for sales. And somehow, none of them talk to each other.
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Try for free today at Odo.com/slash iHeartRadio. That's ODOOO.com/slash iHeartRadio. Here's the truth, you could literally be adored by everyone, and then come home and still get completely ignored by your own cat. It's classic cat behavior. But new Shiba Premium Puree is a lickable treat that changes all that.
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So feed your cat Sheba and go from totally ignored to truly adored in just 12 days, guaranteed, or your money back. Learn more at Sheba.com.
