At age 76, NASCAR legend Junior Johnson's life has whipped around as circular as one of the racetracks he once blew down while racking up 50 career wins. Last fall, thousands of moonshine drinkers and fans greeted him at the 40th annual Mountain Moonshine Festival in Dawsonville. Johnson arrived in a 1940 Ford, a vehicle very similar to the one in which he used to transport the family business in the backwoods of Wilkes County, N.C.

And sometimes just a fender in front of the boys in blue.

Courtesy of Piedmont Distillers (ENLARGE)

Piedmont Distillers in Madison, N.C., makes Junior Johnson's 80-proof Midnight Moon Carolina Moonshine.

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Johnson has been making the promotional rounds to introduce folks to Junior Johnson's Midnight Moon Carolina Moonshine, an 80-proof, legal version of the family recipe being produced by Piedmont Distillers in Madison, N.C.

"I could never have imagined seeing our family's moonshine in a bottle shop with me out promoting it!" concedes Johnson, laughing. "But I think my daddy would be proud that folks are still enjoying it."

Johnson acquired many of his racing skills evading law enforcement through the rural stretches separating the family still operation and its many customers. In 1956, just a year into his NASCAR career, he got popped by police at the family still and spent 11 months in an Ohio prison.

On Dec. 26, 1986, President Ronald Reagan pardoned the then-NASCAR team owner, restoring his right to vote and his passport.

"No maybe about it," Johnson says solemnly. "Best Christmas gift I ever got."

Pardoned or not, Johnson is careful to clarify one detail about his 'shine-related arrest. The cops caught him at his family's still in the woods, not actually running the stuff.

"I never got caught behind the wheel running," Johnson explains. "With as well as I know the woods up here, ain't no way anybody ever could have caught me!

"I've still got my marks on a bunch of those trees all along the roads there."