From February through November there is a stock-car race somewhere in America, with tracks drawing up to 150,000 racing fans, eager to watch their favorite drivers zoom around the oval tracks in cars much like their own automobiles. From humble beginnings in a farmer's field in the mid-1930s, the sport has become so popular nationwide that its television ratings are second only to the National Football League, and top drivers make millions of dollars a year from racing and advertising endorsements. When Jeff Gordon won the opening race of the 1999 season at Daytona Beach, Florida, he collected more than $2.1 million.

The earliest stock-car racers got their training by transporting moonshine whiskey over the dusty roads of Appalachia in the dead of night, outrunning the revenuers by driving flat-out in dangerous conditions. These moonshine runners were a part of a legend, later to be etched in the...