It is 1953 and 16-year-old Junior Roberts is caught up in the hard times of his family. His Ma is very ill and his Pa is struggling as a marginal provider on the small family farm hidden in the hollows of the North Carolina mountains. It is Jack Maybary, the devil’s agent and John Deere salesman, that seduces Pa to make some illegal whiskey to sell. It falls to Junior to deliver the moonshine to the Parson who is the local distributer for the area. The widow Webb is paid $500 for her 1940 Ford coupe—its fate is to become the hauler for the moonshine.
But first, it must be extensively modified by Jerry Price so that it can out run the law. The plan works—up to a point. The point where Junior gets caught and goes to prison. He comes out a changed man and a fearsome NASCAR driver. The Ford gets sold by the sheriff to Wally Davis … and the rest of the story is …
