"We'd often hear stories of how an old moonshine still was operated here on the property under the grandstands," says a VP at Speedway Motorsports about North Carolina's North Wilkesboro Speedway. CBS Sports calls it an "urban legend," but it turns out those stories may be true: During a routine cleaning and inspection of the race track, cracks in the original concrete in one of the sections led to the discovery of an open area underneath the grandstands measuring about 700 square feet, NBC News reports. While no still has yet been found, a cave and an interior wall were; the VP says it "would have been the perfect location to not only make illegal liquor, but to hide from the law as well."
The speedway was one of the original NASCAR tracks, but it closed in 1996. After a restoration project, it started hosting NASCAR races again last year. The area around it was "notorious" for bootlegging during the Prohibition era, and some early NASCAR drivers actually started out as bootleggers. Speedway staff is assessing next steps to repair the foundation and replace the damaged concrete ahead of May's All-Star Race, but it sounds like the exploration of the possible moonshine cave will continue: "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," the VP says. (More NASCAR stories.)
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