Loading the trip car

The thin soil in the mountains of the South was not good enough for much except corn. By turning his corn into whiskey, a farmer in the 1930’s and 1940’s could produce enough ‘shine in one night to equal his yearly income from farming. There was only one problem: the sale of untaxed liquor was illegal. The determination of federal, state and local governments to stop the traffic in ‘shine gave birth to the tripper.

The tripper moved the ‘shine from the still to the buyer. The trip car was a full-sized sedan with reinforced rear springs . It was stripped to a bare minimum and when fully loaded carried 180 gallons (approximately 1400 pounds) of ‘shine. When empty the rear end sat high and made it easy to spot. All the police had to do was catch it!

Trippers knew every twist and turn of every back country road and took great pleasure in outrunning the “revenuers.” Many of the first stock car drivers honed their talent on nightly runs between the still and the nearest large city.

A revenuer could outrun a trip car going uphill, but when the road was downhill or level, the trip car could pull away. Some revenuers installed railroad tongs on the front of their cars. When the revenuer bumped the trip car, the tongs closed over the bumper and the tripper was caught.

The trippers countered by installing the bumper with wire. When the tongs closed, the tripper accelerated, the bumper came off, and the revenuer often lost his undercarriage, oil pan, drive shaft, or tires as he ran over it.

The revenuers tried firing buckshot into the radiator of the trip car. By the time the revenuer found the overheated trip car a few miles down the road, the tripper was gone, but the load was captured. As has often been said, one good idea leads to another, and the trippers moved the radiator to the rear, installed air scoops and hoses to drive fresh air to it, and fitted a steel plate on the front of the car.

Another trick was to use a second car as a blocker. The blocker straddled the center of the road between the trip car and the revenue car. When stopped, the blocker denied any knowledge of the trip car. Many early racers were accused of blocking on the race track.

If you watch carefully, you can still occasionally see the legacy of the tripper in modern stock car racing.