What does prohibition have to do with NASCAR?

Answer 1

Everything, if prohibition never existed, there never would have been moonshiners (running illegal whiskey), and the police wouldn't have been chasing them, and the drivers wouldn't have needed faster cars to get away from them. After prohibition was over, the moonshiners still had the Need for Speed, so they started to race each other on short dirt tracks, and in 1949 NASCAR was born.

Answer 2

A great deal of the knowledge and abilities associated with making stock cars go faster were originally applied to the drivers delivering bootleg spirits in the days of prohibition. Certain runners got a reputation for being the fastest. Racing grew out of the desire to know which of these drivers was the fastest.