NASCAR, Untaxed Liquor, and the Whiskey Rebellion

While I don’t know if anyone has ever called Big Bill France the George Washington of NASCAR, but it wouldn’t be far wrong. In 1794, George Washington went with the troops to put down the Whiskey Rebellion. Just imagine if you will, Dwight D. Eisenhower driving a Revenue Agents’ car trying to catch Curtis Turner on the back roads of Virginia or Junior Johnson in Carolina!

Big Bill France didn’t have an army, but he was a large and imposing man, and was known to carry a gun to enforce his rules. There was one occasion it was said, that Big Bill fired his gun in the air to make sure everyone at that drivers' meeting knew that Bill France was running this show, and running it his way.

The winner of the first Strictly Stock (now Cup) series race was disqualified because of modified rear springs. Now, some stories in recent years would have you believe that the modification of that car was an effort to cheat the rules, while in reality, the car was a moonshine hauler car, and such a car would certainly need strengthened rear springs to hold up all the extra weight of that untaxed liquor.

So that car was modified to cheat the law, not any rules NASCAR may have come up with. When Glen Dunaway was disqualified at that first Strictly Stock race in June 1949, his car owner sued the new sanctioning body, NASCAR.

The Whiskey Rebellion and the disqualification of Glen Dunaway set important legal foundations for the United States and NASCAR, respectively. When the troops George Washington led arrived in western Pennsylvania, the Whiskey Rebellion was quickly over.

This incident established the power of Federal law within the states. When NASCAR won the court case over the disqualification of Glen Dunaway, its power to make and enforce rules was established by law.

While important legal precedents were established in both incidents, things really did not change. Untaxed whiskey continued to be made after the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794, even up to today. 

And although the Dunaway car may not have been modified to cheat the rules of NASCAR, “creative interpretation” or “getting competitive” or what some would even crudely call “cheating” in regards to NASCAR rules, continues to this day as well.

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