ESPN Ryan McGee Blog

There are times in one's life that my man Marty Smith and I like to call "time machine moments." Those out-of-body experiences that make you wish you had Doc Brown's DeLorean to go back and tell your 11-year-old self that he won't believe what's coming.

Tuesday evening was one of those moments.

There we stood, in a holler northwest of Wilkesboro, N.C., alongside a babbling brook and in front of a replica moonshine still (at least we think it was a replica). We were there for the first-ever Moonshiners and Revenuers Reunion, an event organized to honor the bootlegger lifestyle that gave birth to NASCAR.

On the other side of the creek, our childhood racing heroes mingled, eating barbecue, sipping beverages and talking racing, all while standing in the shadow of Benny Parsons's childhood home. Junior Johnson, David Pearson and Bobby Allison were there. Gentleman Ned Jarrett even looked over and gave us a thumbs up.

I was there to write an upcoming column for ESPN The Magazine. Marty was there to cover the event for ESPN2's "NASCAR Now." When the modern NASCAR stars he was supposed to interview ran late (actually, they never showed up), he corralled me to come do the live shot with him.

"Dude," Marty said giddily as we took our places, "can you believe this?"

"No," I admitted, holding a ceramic 'shine jug in my hands. "Not now. Not ever."

There was, of course, a bluegrass band. And at 6 p.m., a half-hour after our TV hit, a fleet of tricked-out 1930s Ford coupes rolled in across the creek and parked along the slope with their hoods popped. They each looked ready to drop the hammer and haul a trunk load of apple brandy up Thunder Road toward East Tennessee. One had even been refitted with a modern Corvette engine.

"Keep those people distracted over there," Pearson said to a couple of us with a wink. "I'm going to hot wire this thing."

Can you believe that?

For more than an hour, Junior Johnson and six fellow (former) moonshiners sat in rocking chairs and told tales of making, carrying and selling illegal liquor from one end of the Blue Ridge Mountains to the other. To his right sat a group of five retired revenuers, there to fact-check those stories on the fly.

Ryan McGee

Junior Johnson (sitting) and MRN Radio's Barney Hall (standing) spinning yarns.

"I know a lot people thought maybe we'd get up here and get into a fight," Johnson said with a chuckle. "But we really do respect each other now. We respected each other then. Besides, we're all so old now it wouldn't be much a fight, would it?"

Terri Parsons, Benny's widow and organizer of the event, served merlot and chardonnay from the Benny Parsons Rendezvous Ridge Winery. One tent over, organizers handed out black plastic cups of Johnson's Midnight Moon moonshine, which is now sold legally throughout the Carolinas. "Do you want yours with lemonade or sweet tea?" they asked me. I chose lemonade, paused, and then had them fix me a second one with tea.

On the way back to Charlotte later that night, I put the second beverage in the backseat of my truck and headed down Old Highway 421, the same road those runners and revenuers had blistered on so many hot pursuits. I made the 15-mile trip east to the track that was once their playground, the since-abandoned North Wilkesboro Speedway, where NASCAR raced from its inaugural season of 1949 until the bullring was left for greener financial pastures in 1996.

I pulled up to the track in the dark and took a seat on a wooden blockade just outside the padlocked main gate. I sipped my 'shine and thought about NASCAR's roots. My roots. Then I headed home.

Can you believe that?

Hall Hopefuls

No less than five of Wednesday's 25 nominees for the NASCAR Hall of Fame's inaugural class were represented at Tuesday's reunion: Johnson, Allison, Pearson, Parsons and Jarrett.

The candidates and their families unashamedly lobbied some of the members of the 50-person voting panel who were also on hand, including Atlanta Motor Speedway president Ed Clark, former Lowe's Motor Speedway president Humpy Wheeler, MRN Radio's Barney Hall, retired Charlotte Observer writer Tom Higgins and retired crew chief Waddell Wilson.

Three of Wednesday's nominees are also on the voting panel: retired team owner Bud Moore and two of the men at Tuesday night's reunion, Jarrett and Johnson. Would they dare vote for themselves?

"I don't know if we're allowed to," Jarrett said in his legendarily graceful manner. "If we are, I just might. If for no other reason because I don't want to get, as we used to say, skunked."

Season's Tweetings

Last week, Michael Waltrip publicly threw his hat into the Danica Patrick Stock Car Lottery by admitting that he'd given her a tour of the Michael Waltrip Racing (MWR) shop in Mooresville, NC and saying she could "have whatever she wants" to make the deal happen.

On Tuesday night, Waltrip found an opportunity to add another dimension to his sales pitch when he saw Patrick on Twitter bragging about her cooking skills. Suddenly, anyone logged on was privy to a conversation between a two-time Daytona 500 winner and an Indy 500 Rookie of the Year.