What goes better together? Peanut butter and jelly? Macaroni and cheese? Love and marriage? The Dallas Cowboys and first-round playoff exits?
How about NASCAR and moonshine?
In what may be the most NASCAR thing you’ll ever hear, a moonshine cave may have been located under a historic race track in North Carolina.
North Wilkesboro Speedway, a historic short track on U.S. Route 421, has long been rumored to have a secret moonshine cave hidden beneath its grandstands.
Now, thanks to a sinkhole discovered during renovations on the track, the cave appears to have been found. The sinkhole is located under the concrete front stretch grandstands.
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Moonshine Cave Under A NASCAR Track
I mean, seriously. Just the phrase moonshine cave itself makes you want to rip your shirt off and show off that farmer’s tan ala Farmer Fran in The Waterboy.
Alright, maybe it’s not that awesome. But still.
And now you’ve also got a moonshine cave under a NASCAR track?! Talk about killing two birds with one stone.
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No Still … Yet
Officials released a statement saying no still had been found but the area located would have been ideal for illegal moonshining.
“When we began renovating and restoring North Wilkesboro Speedway in 2022, we’d often hear stories of how an old moonshine still was operated here on the property under the grandstands,” Sportsnaut reports.
“Well, we haven’t found a still (yet), but we’ve found a small cave and an interior wall that would have been the perfect location to not only make illegal liquor, but to hide from the law as well,” it continues.
“We don’t know how people would have gotten in and out, but as we uncover more, there’s no telling what we might find.”
Wilkes County, North Carolina is considered to be the birthplace of NASCAR. Not to mention the “Moonshine Capital of the World.”
North Wilkesboro Speedway was built in 1947 and hosted its first NASCAR race in 1949.
“The racetrack was built where it was because moonshiners lived in the area and wanted a place to race their souped-up cars,” Forbes writes.
They needed those souped-up cars. Why? Obviously, because they were running illegal products on back roads.
“Many Wilkes County distillers ran white liquor as far as Detroit, New Jersey, and South Florida,” Wikipedia explains. “Since this often involved outrunning local police and federal agents in auto chases, the county became one of the birthplaces of the sport of stock-car racing.”
North Wilkesboro Speedway closed in 1996 but was reopened thanks to an infusion of state funding in 2021. The track subsequently hosted the 2023 NASCAR All-Star Race.
It will likewise return to that location in May of 2024.
