The Birth of a Legend: NASCAR's Early Days and Pioneers (Bill Blair Jr's Personal Museum)

it's well known that Moonshiners and their hot rods built to outrun the cops are the origins of NASCAR nowadays that was almost 100 years ago and there's pretty much none of those guys left but we found the next best thing who was an eyewitness's little kid the son of one of these Pioneers Bill Blair who remembers almost everything from following his dad around back in the day watching him modify his Flathead forward with primitive tools and Common Sense maybe I just need to tell you a quick story about how this deal worked here is what they call the baby diaper car that's 39 fold standard C that's my daddy standing beside it that's on the Old Farm we had a 800 acre dairy farm and this is the picture of the old bull Barn where they kept the Bulls and this is West Hedgecock above hedgcock this my daddy this 394 this baby diaper car uh got his name from the guy there in High Point who owned the baby diaper service but Dy got this car after and one up and he going to paint it and they didn't have no paint they going to town and get some paint and back then they shot straight in Amal along and the guy said well I just give you the paint that I've got left over from my baby diaper trucks this was the color of them and they said okay so they painted the color of the baby diaper truck and that's why it got his name baby diaper well later on this car was toore all two pieces I got pictures over here tow up at North wilb in 47 of course you can see he's been in a bender or two and this old toe bars are used and this is before NASCAR existed right yes was your dad uh part of the original old moonshine hot Roder well uh yes he was um that's from 19 and 32 he got caught in mville Virginia 125 gallons of non- tax plate liquor car was setting low in the rear and they knew it had Liquor on it so started chasing him and they got to the bridge it was blocked off and somebody had the squal on him because it didn't have radios back then and he thinks it either Sam or clay ears that SED on because he Sam had a Sam and his brother had a place called a Martin eat Club on top of the hill on 8 in Martinville and down below there at the bottom of the hill claro had a place called the spot so that's the guys that was prominent in your moonshine business what kind of car was he using when he was running moonshine well he started out with 32 Ford and he later on he went to 44 had 30 had several 39s um is that what any of these are I'm not I'm not literate enough in this area we had one exactly like this this is a very rare color brown 39 standard that's only the second one I've ever seen in my life he had one H Li we made a race car up finally and tore it all two pieces I got a picture of it what would they modify to do that kind of stuff you would put helper spring Lea at the rear to get set a little higher you put bigger tires on the rear some of them did but then run his pretty much stock he put a extra spring lifa to under the back of it and that's about all he did to it but I mean he was an early on guy you know and then they put two carrers on them I'll show you one up here but see uh well this this car here just to give you an example it started out being 85 horse well next thing you would do get on a horow you put the El roock heads on as you see down in there then the next thing you would do is get you a molic supercharger see that thing on top of that block over there that was made 1939 4394 I found that one not long ago and going recondition it and paint it put on this board over here to simulate what he had and you put two carers up on top of if somebody asked me could you buy a supercharger for your Flathead port in 1939 I'd really have to think about it well they started making his made in Milwaukee uh guy's last name was mullik I think his first name is Fred but U anyway it's U it's pretty pretty neat that was made for just uh a regular adapter you put that on uh this a regular uh two barel in Tite and you had two CES on it's how crude to that that compressor wheel is compared to a a turbo now or does how many all give about seven or eight PB boost what it did all those little things had to be carved out by hand in the mold and that's just that's incredible I got to figure out how the old hooks back up and everything and strip it paint it and I'll get it back together now this block here is one I put my cam sh in to plot them I plot cam Sha but as is I'm on cam sha these things he also later on would put a the Mercury motor in with more stroke little supercharger hum you know but law didn't have anything run any faster so you you equal and sometimes they' give him an xri car when he went up there and he got caught and they put him in jail didn't have no bail money spend all his money on buying the liquor so they called home to Mr Blair he said well we just caught your son up here William Ivy Blair with 125 gallons of KN on tax paid liquor so Mr Blair thought a minute he said well sir let me tell you what you do B you caught him you keep him and hung the phone up yep that's what he did so next day Bill's mother sent the oldest boy Garland up to get him out jail and it cost $5 that was the bail and so his daddy got all over him so he went to trial later on in uh Danville that was the Western District Court of Virginia and they find him $100 and put him on probation didn't send him to K chil carthy he know he was going to chil karthy but he didn't go and I think Mr BL daddy probably in politics called up and got somebody to fix it for him I don't know that but that's that's what happened anyway it didn't go kill carthy what the story is that um he told the judge that would be his last run you know now we got a moonshine bottle made by uh Southern Distributors over in St from North Carolina called Blair's last run these cars was getting hard to find everybody wanted a 39 fold this was a car of choice why because it had H brakes on it the 38 didn't the 40s wasn't here yet this is a barn fine ain't you know who used to drive it yep yep that race day on the boots in 1953 EC Ramsey drove it it belonged two brothers over in uh stat for North Carolina and one of the brothers got killed come down Fancy Gap driving a truck and it set out in the beside the dairy farm for years and Billy bisco bought it and I bought from Billy that's a real race car both of them are really I'm a hoarder I guess you might say we have a common saying with these videos is that you're not a hoarder if the stuff you keep is cool and I would say you fit that category okay now this this gives you a better view of it but uh is this one your dad actually raced my dad didn't race it what we did here was uh This was done for a movie Red Dirt rising to start with and then another movie but it's a and then I kept in the shop that's what I Ed as a backdrop I used to do some live uh videoing out here interviewing so I just I use this as a backdrop but it's a real race car that's the real deal and these cars I think sold for a standard cop what about $650 $700 something like that all it cost back then my dad tore up a bunch of them the Flop boys tore up a bunch of them and next thing you know France is calling up Ford Motor Company I don't know who he talked to but he's wanting to build a 39 Ford again and they said well thank you very much but we're in the business of selling new cars it wouldn't look good on our behalf if we could started making 39 for again France here's what he did what we going to do boys we run out of cars everybody want thir 9 ford what it developed into was strictly stock that's one of your reasons now I hung around my D I was like a shadow there am that picture and these guys were self Engineers I'm going to call it like that I'm going tell you why now to me and them an engineer was somebody that run a railroad train right well today we call them Engineers there all the race shops has got them or they have them I don't know what nas cars doing with them now being they build all your cars you got to buy it from them so they they really need an engineer I don't know probably for shocks and stuff like that to do you here I am watching him what he's doing here now what he's doing there now he never heard of a chassis dno now some of the truck shops back in that period of time possibly had chassis dinos I know they did in the 50s but this is this the fix of 1947 and that's 394 the baby diap card he's got it chained to the tree it's on bare rims no rubber on them and it's he made some platforms and he's greased them and that guy there West Hedgecock has got a big oil can right there it is he's keeping those rims oil and Bub his brother gets in the car and cranks up and puts it in gear it's got two carburetors an all not off house but it's got a grand cor intake two carburetors on it and it's w held there the pedal to the floor by by bub in the car I run it wide open and my daddy is tune it by moving that stri back and forth it sounds just right to him seeing those they didn't have a timing light they had a light a simple light to let you know when the points broke and that was it and didn't even have a top dead center mark on you had to guess at it I mean I've got the engine piece to show there's no Mark for top dead center you brought it up on compression you could take spark plug out and put your finger over and then you feel it come up you know it's on top of that Center you real close so that's when you want your points to break so you you got to start somewhere and what you would normally do you took that stripped and turned it until the engine freed up and then you start turning it back retarding it till it just started to labor a little bit and that's why we tighten it down that's generally with the with the mechanical advance in that distrib that put it about right for total Advance probably about 25 de tot advance so that's how he done it but in this case what he's doing he's running It Wide Open he's moving that stri back and forth got a long screwdriver the uh distributor is in the middle of the front of the engine so you take a long screwdriver and loosen up you two bolts you can move it back and forth with a hammer and that screwdriver and that's what he's doing holding it wide open and you can hear the motor change tones as he moves that distributor he gets it where he wants it Minish then he comes out from under the hood and and Bub shut it off and they get out and they talk about it and I'll run over there and take my fingers to scrape ice off the intake cuz it's run methanol and Nitro got thing Thunders man with that nitrated probably run about 40 50% you had methanol Metro back then but no timing late that's right that's right never would have guessed so next thing do he' met this scy Johan California where did you get that not to interrupt you but where did you get methanol Nitro in 1940 from The Carter Bros up here in rville what did they use it for what was it supposed to be used for well Nitro they were going to uh up around Philadelphia and getting I think they buying some of that stuff from Eid P you could just go buy it yeah in a store what did they think people were going to use it for well I don't know I don't know say we have it so you can buy it I don't know what for the Carter brother up here U and Taylor Carter was his name in reille that's where he got it all he met this guy in California that sent him some adjustable jet now this is to tell you how these guys thought like I said this is 46 and 47 he run that car wide open again and you what you do you screw your jet in your jet needle it looked like a AR blade needle but about this long do you have one of those pieces here uh yeah I'll show you here yeah let's look at it where you're talking about it Well here here's the cob Rider um you had to drill in here and and put two fittings and run a needle in here that had a it look like these screws right here see the screws right down here BL that's what it look like except it's real long it's about that long you run it in then you count so many turns out and you you turn it almost twice as much if you burnt methanol that did if you run gas so it takes about twice as much methanol as it does gas to get the motor to run and make power you add nitrate to it you had to open up a little bit more you see those headers up there I see there's a head up there on top yeah it's got three pipes there coming off the block that middle pipe is Siamese now what he did those pipes It Wide Open turn red hot and he tuned the the cators to get all those pipes looking the same color now that was his EtG Gauge by sight and on on these dinos so you got gauges tempure gauges that you can monitor if you're too rich or too land it'll tell you but with him he's going to by the color now think about that a minut he didn't know what a ETG gauge was never heard of it temperature gauge was something on the Das you tell you how hot it was and that's the way it was to him so as you look in that picture there you're looking at a chassis Dino in 1946 1947 that's what he's done you know that's funny when the first 10 times I looked at that picture I never realized that the car was chained to the tree mhm like running I thought it was just being worked on I you know that's well that chain HSE in that picture is hanging right there that's the same one that's the same one and uh that's the very same chain horse and there's a chain down there in that building just like this one that's original chain it's just like this they had tied around a tree that was a big big tree stand in that building and the platforms look something like these uh right here the they were larger they about twice that size you had plenty of lumber left over from that building you know and they just throwed one together but over here is something to show you now we talked about this the deal on this motor see in the back of this engine you got your big Galley down there here's your oil U your ports for your oil and you I ta this block drill into it where I can put oil filter on see Ford never had an oil filter on these things I can run oil filter on but there's a there's a is gear goes back here in the bag that turns the off the uh the cam shave it turns the oil pump so if you close that deal up up under here you can make a pressure suction pump out of it that's what gr did and so what you wanted to do you had to tap it like this to run you another line and then you took this can right here like that so he had put behind the seat you took KN two holes in here and soort them in there run a black line in the back of this block one one come out from this side come in to fill it from the original o pump and then the other one was sucking oil out of here and then it come pressure when it got right here up in this area it's what fed the engy bares but you had to heat that o before you did that and what he used is pump just like this right here you pump this up you adjust it by turning this and you have a spew it out under pressure and you light it kerosene then it blows blue flame and you just get down here start heat it until you thought you had it hot enough so what is that a World War II gas can yeah mhm just F gallon you know it don't look like a whole F gallon does that's what I told it was 5 gallon can but anyway that's what he used how did you get a buddy Baker's jacket um I was up in Norwalk Ohio and saw it over a motor and uh I knew guy and I said where'd you get that and he said I don't know half a year so I wored a little bit and said just just I don't know and I said well what you going to do with said I don't know you want I said yeah I'll take it if you don't mind say give it to me wow it was covering yeah it was covering a motor yeah it was it a YT where I think he got it was from probably well I don't know it but buddy back for sure but anyway uh it was a it was a 300 it 303 cubic in a Pontiac motor Grand American motor and that's what he had that covered up with and you know Buck U got a lot of stuff in Pontiac back in the early' 70s and he they gave it to him so he could sell it that's how he supported this program and we did the same thing where are these belts from well that come out a drag car that's what my dad used to use you get them at the this Surplus at the airport so Army like see up here in High Point you had the army bag up our air post and they train the pilots and that's what that stuff was from day Pilots uh when they banned the airports you had a lot of stuff left laying around they sold it and this is that toe bar stand knuckle bar probably one of the most dangerous things ever and you were telling a race car 65 M hour behind a station wagon oh Lord yes yeah I wouldn't do it again you know hear stories like that and we just wonder like how did anybody survive some did sometimes people are so safety conscious now you think like how did you even live to be your age now this right here my friend is post hole diggers from tric Speedway 1947 and there's that liquor car again see it right there and this Lorn Pennsylvania the left their tires blown yeah and uh he leading the race come in and uh change the tire and went out still for in second Le P he won it what's that post down there with all the that's liid Speedway L and A friend of mine uh got that and gave it to me cuz my daddy wanted a race down there 1952 and that was the very first car that was automatic transmission to went in Nas car Cup Series old 88 had s drive on it I can't imagine there were too many of those there wasn't but they wanted to experiment with them and so that they did and is it day turn the first race with it in February of 52 and it down shifted by itself and going down the black top it went around around went way up in air when it crossed over sandom to the right and caught no one was behind him he said he saw all the way up on that car and it come back down in the highway and said the blue smoke flew when those tires hit the ground just some days old TOs and stuff and there's that brown for D about like the one I got over by is this what sockets used to look like that's what they did yeah are you serious I've never seen these before and this is your first degree Wheels um like you building an engine what you degrade the engine with back then hope how and that's that old brown for again that's some days old the that's talk she pulling read need on boy was that not cude was that a military goggles too yep that's it well I call them motorcycle goggles now this is your first organized race up in the I guess it was Delaware uh but anyway this is W Campbell and this is my daddy and he wanted my daddy wanted to race it's in the book that he won the first organized race in that state that's my where's that taking at Dayton BAS go arm tear down after the race he won it and tore down so they take you somewhere else to tear the car apart it didn't it National Guard Armory it's it's still on a18 is that building still there I think J France bought it you have to preserve it interesting yeah and this is the the movie that the the BL boys it's about dting these brothers and that pictur that TR see Speedway there now this is is a headlight door cover I found over there at the old house old home place off went modifies of his yeah what happened to that place when did the well the plantation home still there this National Historic rest of days and but it's still there but the other home place over at the house where we lived moved there the soubor 1938 and then 1940 I guess uh three we moved back to town what happened High Point escap expanding and Mr Blair didn't want to pay tax on the cattle so he bought that Plantation up there and so we kept the one downtown I moved back there this is like with Speedway Tim my daddy he he was when1 to race down Tim second oh those headers right there's off them 62 63 Pontiacs those collectors I bet ain't none of them in existence today nowhere but you not found…