Tech Savvy NASCAR Hall of Fame Opens in Charlotte

The tech savvy NASCAR Hall of Fame opens its doors in Charlotte, N.C., celebrating motorsports pioneers like The King, Richard Petty (inset).

America's favorite motorsport builds a shrine to its heroes and history.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — The most difficult item to assemble at the new NASCAR Hall of Fame wasn't one of the mesmerizing touchscreens and interactive displays, but Junior Johnson's rebuilt moonshine still from yesteryear.

The problem was only solved with the help of an expert. A call was placed and Johnson, one of NASCAR's pioneers and a member of this month's first Hall of Fame class, gathered his tools, drove into town and did the job himself.

"That's like Babe Ruth designing, building and installing one of the first exhibits in Cooperstown," NASCAR Hall of Fame director Winston Kelley said

Johnson's still, celebrating the birth of the sport by bootleggers such as himself outrunning the police in souped-up cars, is one of the featured items at this $195 million facility set to open Tuesday. So is Red Byron's 1939 Ford, which won NASCAR's first race, and Richard Petty's record-breaking blue Plymouth.