Morgan Shepherd: The Last of the Moonshiners

The Dale Jr. Download

Dirty Mo Media & SiriusXM

Sports

4.8 • 9K Ratings

🗓️ 27 May 2026

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dale Earnhardt Jr. sits down with longtime fixture in the NASCAR garage, Morgan Shepherd, to learn about his journey from bootlegging to becoming a multi-time Cup Series winner. Born in Ferguson, North Carolina, Shepherd followed his father Jesse Clay’s footsteps into the moonshine lifestyle. It was here he honed his driving skills, and after a close call with the police scared him straight, he decided to exercise fast driving on the local short tracks. He took to the legendary Hickory Motor Speedway and began winning on a regular basis in the late model ranks. Through the 1970s, Morgan began moving up the NASCAR Late Model Sportsman rankings before winning the national crown in 1980.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media.
0:06.7	You're Dale Jr.
0:09.9	Should I say it?
0:11.4	It's Dale Jr. podcast, I got to say it.
0:16.3	Hey, everybody.
0:17.1	Welcome back to the Dale Jr. Download.
0:18.7	We got a great guest for you today.
0:20.2	Had a conversation several weeks ago with Morgan Shepard.
0:23.5	And it was awesome to see Morgan.
0:26.6	But I want to kind of be up front with you guys about some of the health challenges that Morgan is dealing with.
0:35.0	And one of those is Parkinson's disease.
0:37.9	And it's affecting his memory, his train of thought.
0:42.2	And with that said, we made a few edits to this conversation.
0:48.2	And we added in some audio and some cool designs and broadcast audio from some of Morgan's career highlights.
0:58.0	I want to thank MRN for giving us an opportunity to make that happen.
1:02.0	And I hope you'll enjoy the conversation that we had with Morgan.
1:06.9	So let's get into it.
1:08.0	Before we bring Morgan into the Arby studio, don't forget about Arby's new meat- new meat in three box. You get more meal for your money at Arby's. We have the meats.
1:18.9	Morgan Shepard. Yes, sir. How are you doing? I'm doing good. Yeah. I had the pleasure of getting
1:25.0	to come down and see you. Yeah. Yeah. I tell you, we see more of you now than when you're racing. I know it. Yeah, I know. When I was driving a race car, I was always in a helmet and under the roof of that thing. But now that I'm out of the car, I think I'm busier now than I ever was. I'm busier now than I was when I was driving full time. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you know how it is. For sure. Yeah. So I'm thankful you're here. You're born Clay Morgan Shepherd, October 12, 1941 in Ferguson, North Carolina. And there's a ton of great stories about you.
2:03.0	But I'm reading one here right out of the gate.
2:05.6	You had polio when you were young.
	...

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